“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” and so in you the child your mother lives on and through your family continues to live… so at this time look after yourself and your family as you would your mother for through you all she will truly never die.” ― Osho
Whether we love them, hate them, or have mixed feelings about them, we celebrate them this weekend. Sometimes the paternity of the father is questionable, but there is only one mother. The images in the above collage were only taken today. As I saw signs around me everywhere advertising diverse gifts for Mother’s Day, my attention was caught by these Lladro figurines. There was no sign drawing attention to them as gift items. However, they brought home to me that whatever latent mothering feelings are there during pregnancy – a mother does not become a mother without the birth of the child.
But if a sappy one is what you want, you’ll have to read another.
For my poem is a bit different and tells of many things,
But is not one of corny, mushy verse or one that pulls heart strings.
This day we remember mothers is very much over done,
for if the truth be known, seeing us coming, she’d like to run.
For she remembers all the hard times when we were little kids,
We fussed, fought, and caused her trouble till she nearly flipped her lid.
Oh how those midnight feedings really endeared us to her heart,
Finding there was no formula, having to dash to the local mart.
Oh the colicy kicking and crying that went on throughtout the night,
And the spitting up on her Sunday best, just when the time was right.
She hasn’t forgotten my toddler years, oh those terrible twos,
When she chased me round all day long and I discovered her very short fuse.
Yes, she remembers fingerprints, she found on everything,
The scattered toys she tripped on, till my neck she wanted to ring.
Cooking meals, doing laundry, work never seeming to end,
I’d see that hysterical look in her eyes and hear, “Go spend a night with a friend!”
A favorite game with us kids was called “The Battle of Wills,”
It never failed to bring, “Fetch me that bottle of pills!”
She hasn’t forgotten the tracked in mud on freshly mopped and waxed floors,
The screaming, yelling, pushing,and slamming all the doors.
Oh the broken windows as the baseballs missed their mark,
And the stray dogs brought home often, which of course, loved to bark.
She survived our driver’s ed, though it was nearly the very last straw,
I remember her frozen panic, the blood on the windows she clawed.
Then there was my wedding when she hugged me and said I’d be missed,
But I caught the gleam of joy in her eyes at the thought of me gone, as we kissed.
Yes, the day we honor mothers, is sorely overrated,
And though once very much cherished, its now very outdated.
I think that she would want to forget all the hard work and lean times,
But we bring it up every year with dinners, songs, and rhymes.
And yet I would like to think those remembered thoughts of old,
Are cherished and are precious to her, memories of gold.
Finding nickles for the icecream man and eating the chicken’s back,
Our mothers often did without so we would never lack.
So though I didn’t want this sappy, I guess it has to be,
For there’s nothing in the world, like a mother’s love you see.
Cassie Memmer © May 5 1994
