The Love of a Mother

11 May 2012

Did ya know it’s Mother’s Day this Sunday? Oh yes it is. I’ve always had a hard time with Mother’s Day. I get along with my Mother but we have our issues. It is seriously challenging to know and love my Mother and yes, I know it is seriously challenging knowing and loving me too. Well, I get it from her!!! Regardless of history, issues and familial strife, every year I play the dutiful son and I honor my Mother on Mother’s Day. I do so gladly I guess, despite my grumblings. She is, after all, my Mom.

I’m not the only one who has problems relating to their mothers. I think everyone in the world does to some extent. Mothers are our biggest fans and our fiercest critics. Our biggest supporters and our toughest coaches. Everything that we need in life we get from our mothers, every bit of our essence today is built through our mothers. Mothers give us life, as do our fathers, but I have always felt that it is the mother that nurtures that life and has the most far reaching effect or impact on our lives. Young children need their mothers and in all reality, that need does not diminish one iota as time goes on. Our persona and how we face and handle life in the future is influenced and forged at an early age by our mothers. If we are lucky, that influence is positive. When it is positive, then all things can be achieved. When it is negative, it is perhaps the most devastating thing one can have vested upon them. There is no denying the impact a mother has on one’s life.

I’ve had the benefit of several Mother influences on my life. First of all of course is my Mother and I don’t want to get into issues or negativity here because that’s not what this is about today. My mother gave me life for which I am eternally grateful. She cared for me as best she could despite some personal challenges of her own and though I don’t agree with a lot of things, I know that she loved me completely and without question. I struggle here so I’m going to end this phase of my topic today but suffice it to say, it was a struggle growing up and if nothing else, I know there was a mother’s love there and I am thankful for that.

For me, many good things in my life spring from my Grandmother Devine. She helped raise me off and on throughout my childhood to include a stretch of about 2 years where my brothers and I had to live with her and Grandpa because our parents had other things to do besides raise us or even visit us during that time. This time with Grandma was life as it should have been. She imparted on us good family values, traditions, responsibility and of course, love. My brothers and I learned about God and what it means to work to help support the family. We did that by doing chores and working out on the farm. We dug taters, shucked corn and snapped beans! We helped plant them fields too and I remember it being hard work. I will never forget our times there, it was a time when my brothers and I could live, work and play as children should.  My sense of right, my judgment and my morals were forged here and are a direct result of my Grandma Devine’s influence and tutelage. I am truly blessed to have had her in my life and I believe that everything good inside me, comes from her.

Norma Cook is my best friends’, from my teen years, mother. She was very much a motherly influence on me then as well. Most of the neighborhood kids flocked to her. She was a divorced mother of three kids and she worked hard to provide for her family and for all of us “adopted” kids as well. For me, she provided safe haven and she provided guidance. She often times would talk to me and help me through perhaps some of the most difficult times I have ever dealt with. She loved all of us kids and she was an angel to me. I am not so sure what would have become of me had she not been there. I love her dearly to this day and I thank God for her presence in my life.

I celebrate and honor my wife, Terry, on Mother’s Day. Terry and I were childhood sweethearts and I believe that we both we always in each other’s hearts. She is pretty much my caretaker even though I am way too stubborn to admit that I need one.  She’s more than just a caretaker to me, she’s everything to me and I don’t think I can really imagine my life without her in it. I don’t think of her as my mother or anything but I take Mother’s Day to show respect and appreciation for all that she does for me. Mainly I celebrate the job she has done and still does being mother to her two children. They are both grown and now live their own lives.  For as long as I have known her, she has always had to adapt and overcome her unique challenges and hurdles that life often times put in front of her. But she met every challenge and cleared every hurdle. She has done so with grace and always with love in her heart for those around her. She truly has a heart of gold and is one of the most giving persons I have ever known. Raising two children under normal circumstances is hard enough. To do so when you have a lot of odds stacked up against you takes someone of exceptional courage and strength. Terry is all that and is without question, the bravest and strongest woman I have ever met in my life. Throughout her life, she has been subject to derision and people pushing her away and still weathers it to this day from alot of different people and I never understand why. She continually endures disrespect from people that I don’t think deserve to breathe the same air as she does or even be in her presence. Still, she takes it all and handles conflict with the grace of royalty. I have the utmost respect for that and for her. Ultimately though, I am thankful and respectful of the manner in which she handles one of her biggest challenges, me. Living with me is not easy and I am very thankful that she does. Happy Mother’s Day Baby!

I hope that everyone takes time to remember Mom on Mother’s Day. Even if it’s just a phone call or a visit, a little time taken out of your day to give to your Mom is time well spent. Because no matter what, no matter how happily married you are, no matter how many people you think love you, no matter what you do, have done or are doing, nobody in this entire universe loves you more than your Mother. Nobody else ever will.

Have a Blessed Day, a Blessed Weekend and a very Happy Mother’s Day Ya’ll!!!