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Today is "Mother's Day"!
The first memory I have of my Mother is of the two of us sitting in the front porch swing... swinging, singing, and telling stories. Funny how I can close my eyes and actually see us there. I can hear her sweet, gentle voice and see her big brown eyes twinkle as she'd spin her tales. And, when I go there in my mind's eye, it makes me feel so warm, happy and secure. I was blessed beyond words with an angle of a Mom. She was my mentor, my example, my best friend.
When I was in grade school I always had mixed emotions on Mother's Day. Back in the day, on Mother's Day men, women and children wore a flower pinned to their clothing in memory of their mothers...a red flower if your mother was alive and a white flower if she had departed. My father was a Baptist minister and every Mother's Day when we would get ready to go to church my Mom, my sister and I would pin on our red flowers but my Dad had to wear a white one for the mother who died when he was eighteen months old. I always felt so sad for him and would always give him an extra hug before leaving for church. I wonder if that custom still exists today? I seriously doubt it.
You know how you sometimes wonder if you were the best Mom you could have been. You second guess your decisions of the past...like leaving your children to work and not being there when they came home from school or not being there to tuck them in at bedtime. And, the decisions you made during those teenage years...OH MY! did I do the right thing?? After this weekend, I don't think I will ever worry about that again. My third son flew in to be with me for the weekend, my second and youngest came over for what I thought was going to be a visit with their brother, but, turned out to be a "Mom celebration". And, to top it all, just as we were preparing to have dinner a big brown truck pulled into my driveway and delivered the most beautiful floral arrangement from my first born son. The arrangement was full of my mother's favorite flowers. Flowers she always grew in her garden. The card inside read: "I Love you, Mom. Keep on blogging, Bart". I was seriously overwhelmed. I felt like Sally Field's when she accepted her Academy Award. She came to the stage, looked out at the audience and through tears said, " You like me, you really really like me".