Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is May 10th this year. My Mother is gone. She died December 10th of the same year my Dad died, which was 2010. I miss them every day. Even more so lately in this age of isolation. My Dad was always a rock for me.

I know Sunday is a “holiday” which has been set aside to honor our Mothers…and our wives who are the Mother’s of our children, but really shouldn’t we do that every day?

I certainly love the Mother of my children every day. Paula Neurauter Bowers and I have been married almost 51 years, and for 48 of those years she has been a Mother….every day. She’s been a Grandmother since 1990, and since 2011 has been constantly in caring for our youngest grandchildren. She has more love in her heart for her “little ones” then they could ever know. To be in the situation we are in currently is pretty heartbreaking at times….but we’ll get through it somehow.

I respect her more than I do anybody for being the Mother and Nana she has been. I think I have told her that on some other days besides just on Mother’s day. I haven’t told her enough…I never could if I tried.

Before this year Mother’s day was getting more and more commercial every year like a lot of other holidays. They shame you if you don’t go to Jared’s or Kays and buy her a diamond. I think a lot of Mother’s would as soon to have something their kids made them, than something bought. A crudely colored card with a scribbled “I love you” Something made in love by a child or grandchild.

My Mom kept a cutting board I made for her in Vacation bible school when I was eight. It said “Mother” I think I still have it somewhere around the house. She never used it, just kept it propped up in the kitchen. Guess it’s sort of like the little squiggly drawings I keep that the kids and grandchildren did when they were tiny and gave them to us as presents. We still get them. They are hung everywhere…on the refrigerator…one the walls. Mom got a cutting board, but she never lost it.

My Mom was a person who had many problems and privations during her lifetime. She was beset by mental illness in 1960, and battled it off and on for the rest of her life. She was thirty years old that year, and she lived to be almost 81. That’s a long battle. It’s one most people would have given up on, and I witnessed the days that Mom would have given up if she had not had that spark of love in her for her family. That tiny spark which we could nurture and eventually bring her back to us for a period of time….many times for years and years. She was a sweet lady during the “good” times. She loved to cook, took up crocheting, and watched her soaps every day with Daddy. She was terribly sick the last few years of her life, with diabetes and a nervous system which was wearing out. She had to have a pacemaker, and it always hurt her….I believe it was on a nerve or something. There were some very bad days. Wearing and wearying days. Days in which I wish I could have done more, would have done more. My regrets are myriad, and many.

Yet, when I think of her now, I think of her as a young woman. I think of the smell of clean bleached sheets hanging on the clothes line when I was four. I think of the backbreaking work she did filling battreys in the mill on the second shift for years, because we needed the money, and so she could save some money. I think of the trips with her and Daddy to Myrtle beach, and the “frozen yoga” I think of the Italian Cream cake for my birthday. I think of the deep love she had for her own Mother, and the twice a month trips to the Blue Ridge nursing home that she and Daddy took, to take Granny out to eat. I think of how much she really did love my brother and me, and also all her precious grandchildren, the five of them. Yes, I indeed have all of those, and many more, good memories to sustain me, and to which I cling on many days, especially on Mother’s Day.

So, on this Mother’s Day this Sunday, show your Mother some love if she’s still with you. Call her, text her, video text her, do a drive by at a physical distance which won’t put her at risk. Send some flowers if you can find a place to do it in this day and age….but most of all just tell her you love her somehow! Tell someone who is not a physical Mother, but who has been significant in your life, you love them and you are taking time on this Mother’s day to let them know how much you appreciate them. Facebook would be a great place to do that. Let’s use it for something that has something to do with love for a change.

I’ll be thinking of my Mom, and I’ll be with my wife.

And lastly Dad…miss you every day old buddy. Wish I could hear what you had to say….but I’ve got a lot of what you said deep in my heart.