Mom's Day

"God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers." That's an old Jewish proverb, and in light of May being the moth mom is honored just about everywhere I thought I would write something about my own mom..not for you, but because it is good for one to remember lost loved ones from time to time. It is fuel for the soul and certainly one reason we have "days" for people. He who is completely separated from those who are gone but helped formulated the character they assumed in their lives, will lose a little each year of what they learned from the the departed loved one. It's healthy to remember.

I had a very close relationship to both my parents all throughout my life. If the childish refrain, "Mom loves you bestest", were really true I think my mom may have loved me "bestest", though she did everything to deny it or show that it might be a subliminally induced trait that she never wanted to exhibit. She would declare equal love for her two sons. But I knew that equality in love is as impossible as equality in everything but mathematics. When my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer I could see that favoritism toward me even more. I became her parent and she my child, as so often happens late in the life cycle.

My mother Jane (same name as my 16 year old Jane) taught me many things, and most of them indirectly. The genius of my parents lay in their modeling truths and lessons rather than "instructing" them. My mother's kindness and selflessness were learned not from a book she read or a speech she gave, but from living those qualities herself. I saw what was right and honorable by observing her.

My mom did many things right. She sacrificed for everyone (I jokingly called her "The Martyr"), she gave us freedom to succeed and fail (and never criticized or doubted us if we failed) she never lost optimism (even in the face of some of the family's greatest tragedies), she believed in all of her family members (she was a woman of faith in more than the ritualistic religious sense), she treated all as if they were carved in gold (no discrimination, no class distinctions, no snobbery, every man woman and child were her family) and on and on.

We all idealize our mothers, but I think mine was really the ideal mom for me. I draw on the memories of my mom (and of my father) frequently and have always tried to be the same kind of parent to Jane as they were to me. My mother exemplified what Oliver Wendal Holmes once wrote,"Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and to the children of them.