Happy Mother's Day
“I didn't care about the gift. / It was the note I wanted, / the salt from his hand, / the words,” admits a woman awaiting a Mother’s Day package from her son away at war, in Frances Richey’s poem, “Letters.”
At the risk of not practicing what I preach, there is no substitute for the intimacy of a handwritten note, no gift as singular as words carefully considered and chosen. I used to do that for my parents’ special days and holidays, as well as dear friends and significant others, over the years. I enjoyed it and felt like I was doing something special for the special people in my life. Alas, Father Time kept marching on and my handwriting became, shall we say, difficult to read. Thus the keyboard! If you find yourself in this situation, try to remember to at least handwrite your au revoir as well as your signature! It’s the least that dopes like us can do.
Which leads us to Mother’s Day, 2025. I trust all of you are prepared for a wonderful day, or preparing for a moment of silence, celebration and/or prayer for one who has passed away, or at the very least, a nice, long smiling and laughing phone call if you cannot make it in person. And if you are still looking for the right words...I got your back. May I offer some words to all of the Mothers out there. Remember, I know many of the women who brought some of you into this world. And trust me, they all deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom! At the very least, I would like to take the opportunity to honor all those special women out there...without whom! So without further delay, Happy Mother’s Day to all!
It’s like watching your mother sleep,
minutes after you have been conceived,
and her closed eyes say it’s all right to wake alone...
- from “Harbor Lights” by Mark Doty
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole...
- from Mother o’ Mine by Rudyard Kipling
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother”...
- from “To My Mother” by Edgar Allan Poe
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
- from “Sonnets Are Full of Love, and This is My Tome” by Christina Rosetti
Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry in the darkness.
- from “Poems Done on a Late Night Car” by Carl Sandburg
O what to me my mother’s care,
The House where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm.
from “The Heart of the Woman” by W. B. Yeats
And while I will have the opportunity to see her and shower her with all the respect and love that a son can muster, but will never come close to being enough, I offer this to Janet Phillips...without whom.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everyday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.
- from “I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone” by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
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