Mother's Day

Today is the one day of the year we stop and turn to our mothers and say all that we should of said over the last years of our lives. Fathers are important, critical actually, but when the father doesn't fulfill his role in the home, it is the mother who almost all the time steps up and takes on both roles. Frankly, I think most of us take our moms for granted until there is nothing around to take for granted anymore. "Oh, mom, geez."

There is a strength in mothers that fathers don't have. There is a strength that is so strong, so powerful that it is hard to describe. It runs the gambit of physical, emotional, social, environmental and anything else that ends in 'al.' Sometimes we know when they're leaving this planet but sometimes we don't. Maybe you were four and you and your parents were living a good life, just the three of you. Your mother and father loved you very much and their love for each was shown as an example to you every day of your young life of what pure love was to look like. Then, your mother developed a cough, maybe a little fever, then she was gone. It was 1918, and she was one of 18 million who died of the flu that year. Or you had a little time, some warning. She became sick when you were nineteen and it was just you and her now. Father had died and the older siblings had moved away. Now it was just you as the last of the family who stood and watched her breath. The cancer had her. She was boarding on unconsciousness until you bent over and whispered something in her ear. Then, she smiled. She rallied and said a few words of coherence and a smile. It would be her last smile on this earth. That image is burned into your mind. The last thing she did was smile at something you told her. Not a bad ending for a son or daughter with their parent.

What are you whispering in your mom's ear today? What are you going to say to her? Don't let her go without a word or two. Moms aren't perfect. The contamination of the Earth has made sure of that. But they are our mothers. Revere them today. Hug them today. Let them know their life counted. Because in them, all they really want to do is love you and know they meant something to you.

Happy Mother's Day moms everywhere!!