This Sunday is Mother’s Day. It’s a special day for Americans. Telephone lines will be tied up causing calls to mothers to be postponed. Tens of millions of cards will be sent, tons of flowers will be picked, and restaurants will be filled.
The worst insult you can give an American is to say something bad about his mother. In many neighborhoods, it will get you an injury – if not an early death! Mothers have an almost God-like quality that is revered throughout America more than any other country I know of. Our love for our mothers has a mystical quality.
Three years ago I wrote about mothers, and how grateful I am for my own Mother. She was (and is) a tornado of activity. It still mystifies me when I recall her love and energy for her seven children. None of us felt neglected because none of us were neglected. How Mother balanced teaching school, finishing two college degrees, caring for her children and for Daddy is a testimony to love and good planning.
My daughter Andrea wrote a song about Mother that bears reprinting. It truly captured how one little girl saw her Grandma, and her dad’s Mother.
“Grandma Caylor” I’ve heard that children are the pride of mothers, I’d have to agree So when it comes to children, you should be as proud as you can be And in the twenty years I’ve watched you, playing out your role As grandma, mother, wife, and friend, I never saw your fire grow cold And when I was a little girl, you showed me how to work real hard, And how to play gently, with the kittens in the yard I watched you trim the flowers, out behind the big white house And your cookies on the counter, were just right for little mouths And as I reminisce about years gone by, the thing I’m thinking of, I know that life would have been less sweet, without your strength and love. And the impressions you left on all us kids, I hope will never fade. And I simply want to thank you, for the difference that you made.My Mother is a farmer’s wife. That meant tending garden, ‘putting up’ (canning) hundreds of Mason Jars full of fruits and vegetables. It meant cooking for nine, and when the threshing crew was working, for twenty more. (The thresher “straw boss” Sparky Geist was a big strong man who could eat more than any two men I knew. Anyone who knows about threshing and threshers is aware of the calories used in that most difficult of work.) When the threshers came, there were twenty very hungry men – and nine family members to cook for.
Yes, my Mother is wonderful, but there are two other kinds of mothers whom I also love and respect.
Adoptive Mothers spend the best years of their lives providing love and nurture for children whom they did not bare. They have an abundance of love that cannot be spent on themselves and their husbands. So they adopt children to raise as their own.
Most adoptive mothers would not be possible if not for still another kind of mother whom I love and respect – those mothers who loved their babies enough to give them up for adoption.
For fifteen years my wife and I have been foster parents for The Liberty Godparent Home in Lynchburg, VA. A newborn baby is brought to us and we have the privilege of being its parents for about two months. It takes about that long for the paperwork and legalities to be concluded before our baby’s adoptive parents can take over.
Our job is simply to love our temporary baby. Our ‘work’ is rocking, singing, kissing, feeding, bathing, and talking to our baby so it knows it is loved. Our ‘work’ is to make it easy for the baby to bond with its adoptive parents. Simply put, we provide a stable loving environment that will help insure our baby’s happiness in life.
We have also provided ‘birth mothers’ a place to stay after giving birth and giving up their baby. I respect them deeply. These young women had three options: abort the baby, try to raise the baby herself, or give her baby to a family who could give it the benefits of a stable home and loving family.
It’s not hard to imagine which option was the least selfish and the most difficult. I believe there will be a special place in Heaven for the mothers who adopt a child, and the ones who gave life – then gave a life – to that child.
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© 2008 by George V. Caylor. All rights reserved.
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.
(Ecclesiastes 10:2)
