I am a longtime single father through sudden tragedy. My daughter was killed at age six by an impaired driver. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Most of what I learned about being a father, I learned through mothers in specific and women in general. I watched. I sat. I listened. I learned. I studied Mother Mary (I am a Protestant pastor) and Mother Teresa. Mary also lost a child in a violent and unjust way. Somehow, I came to be able to say, “I am grateful” not for what I endured, but for the love I learned and the spiritual gifts I received. My daughter’s name was and is Maya. - Dwight Lee Wolter.
Oh my heart 💔. Dwight, I am so deeply sorry for your loss. I am awestruck by the grace in which you see your own loss through a lens of gratitude for love learned. In the midst of so much darkness in the world, this feels like such a precious reminder of the power of love, and a loving community. Sending you much love, and to beautiful Maya also 💖
I am so sorry for you loss. It is inconceivable to me as a parent. God bless you for finding the grace to not only endure but to express your journey in such a touching and beautiful post.
It always seems like the greatest gifts are the ones in which we are given insight to see we have mattered somehow, which is why these gifts of acknowledgement, time or appreciation hit the heart so deeply. Because they say: you matter, you impacted someone/thing, you have value and worth, and I SEE YOU!!
The most precious gifts I have ever received were the quiet ones that showed me someone took time to think about how I meant something to them in a way I didn’t expect. The unexpected message. The note left somewhere random. The responsibilities put aside to share time together. A glance across a room. A kind word of encouragement. It makes me want to pay it forward, to extend those kindness to others, fully understanding how meaningful it can be.
The gift I remember most from my mother, now long passed, was not a physical thing that immediately jumps to mind. It was not a toy, a keepsake, or some treasured object preserved in a box in the attic. It was ballast.
And perhaps that is the strange thing about memory itself: we rarely preserve the object as carefully as we preserve the feeling behind it. The toy fades, the ribbon frays, the photograph yellows...but the sense of being loved, steadied, and quietly protected can remain for decades.
At least ballast is the word I would use now, many years later, after submarines, illness, loss, and enough storms in life to finally understand what she had quietly been giving all along.
My mother gave me what I think most good mothers try to give their children: steadiness. She taught me how to love, how to learn, how to remain curious about the world even when it disappointed me. She was my first coach, first encourager, first quiet voice reminding me that I could probably handle more than I believed I could.
And perhaps most importantly, she created something invisible but enduring, the feeling that there was always a place behind me that remained safe even after I ventured far beyond it.
Like many young men, I eventually disappeared into the world chasing careers, responsibilities, ambitions, and distant oceans. I served aboard submarines where we spoke often of ballast and trim...the hidden systems that kept the vessel steady beneath enormous pressure. Only much later did I realize my mother had been doing something remarkably similar all along.
Children rarely notice ballast while they are inside it. They simply experience it as normal life: encouragement, warm meals, rides to school, someone listening, someone believing, someone still there after failure. Only after years pass do you realize those quiet acts were holding your entire psychological world in balance.
Even now, long after her passing, I still feel the effect of that invisible gift. Not as grief exactly, but as a kind of internal steadiness that remains during difficult moments, an emotional equilibrium that still whispers, You can handle this. Keep going.
That is the strange thing about certain gifts. They do not sit on shelves or gather dust in closets. They become part of the structure holding you upright.
My mother did not hand me ballast directly. She slowly filled the tanks over years of ordinary love. And even now, decades later, somewhere beneath the pressure hull of my life, that ballast remains.
Rex - this is a whole essay!! It’s so beautiful, and feels like a guide for parenting with love and tenderness. Everything about it felt like an ode to memory, to childhood, to preciousness and steadiness. Wow. I will read this more than once. Really, so beautiful.
Oh thank you, that is very humbling. Humbling… is that the right word? I’ll go with it.
Sometimes I joke that I suffer from a condition called “word vomit,” where thoughts and memories just spill out faster than I can organize them. But underneath all of it, I think what I was really trying to say is something very simple.
A few weeks ago at my granddaughter’s baseball game, I told my grown children: “Be there. See her. Cheer for her. That’s all she really wants and needs.”
And you could see it instantly in her beaming grin.
Maybe that’s the ballast parents give us...the feeling that someone showed up, noticed us, believed in us, and kept cheering even after we stumbled a little.
youza!! you said it all. when my mother died my oldest brother was 71. he said he felt like he had lost his safe harbor. she was always the place he could come back to for grounding, love, security, advise, rest.
Judith, I think many of us only fully understand what our parents quietly gave us after they are gone. Not perfection, not answers to everything, but the deep reassurance that somewhere in the world there existed "a place" we could return to and still be loved, grounded, and known. Even at 71, your brother’s words make perfect sense to me. I know that feeling as both my parents have passed... it's sort of an empty space. Thank you for sharing that.
Suleika I am a longtime fan of your work and first time commenter. These words brought me a lot of joy and comfort. Thank you for always being true and sharing your work in such a meaningful and engaging way that brings me such inspiration every time. I hope and pray you are doing well💛
this post hit the nail on it's head! if only i had the understanding at the time when mom would rule with her finger, "wait until you have kids...you'll see" and i had no clue what I would be waiting to see. Ingrates I'd say at the time when raising mine. Look what I've done for you and this is how you treat me...oh well maybe I was looking for something a child isn't supposed to provide a mother? A question to which I've longed to find an answer. My kids, now men with kids of their own from teens to college to a married expectant father those kind of kids who are adolescents and young adults in training; finding their way through the social constructs now with social media, the curse that keeps on giving. There will always be a story to be shared and at almost 84 years young I am waiting to tell mine before my memory completely fades away to whomever will listen.
One thing we treasure is a set of tapes of my father-in-law reminiscing in his old age with his sisters. Another is a videotape that is part of the Holocaust Museum's collection of my great aunt talking about her life.
If it is impractical for you to write the stories you hope to survive you, do consider having someone interview and record you or take notes to transcribe. It is best not to wait too long to tell our stories. My mother waited too long and we now have to guess to assemble the pieces.
You got me again Suleika! I am so moved by what you wrote. As the mother of three girls – age 17, 23, and 26 – I am completely resonating with what you wrote. My hand is on my heart and was the entire time I’ve read this. I am touched so much on this Mother’s Day, which is a great gift.
Hello All. " It makes me think about the ways love is carried—sometimes in words, sometimes in objects, sometimes in the things we keep and keep returning to, long after the moment has passed." Both readings are beautiful I think because it is Mother's Day and we are getting ready to sell the house and move there is so much for me about this. My life has had trauma and grief from childhood. And what stood out today is my mom's love for books. She took us often to the bookmobile. And the other is realizing what is ok to let go of as far as objects. And how much my heart holds to keep all that I need and know. Have a blessed day.
Gina, I wholeheartedly agree. The most important things our Mothers gave us often stop living in objects and begin living quietly inside us. Sometimes it’s a love of books, curiosity, resilience, or simply the feeling of having once been deeply cared for. The objects help us remember, but the real inheritance often becomes part of who we are.
Gina, it is so very hard to pack things up, to separate things out, to decide. Your heart is capacious. It does hold so much. But I honor where you are, in this transition.
I was thinking of this just yesterday, looking around at my bookcases in particular and feeling that culling would be so impossible. My books also tend to have my underlinings, so there are two stories in effect in any book, what the book said as well as how I interacted with it at the time of our encounter.
Objects too- I am surprised at how much history I actually remember for most of what I have, its provenance in my life. It is as if I am surrounded by transitional objects that sit in a liminal space between me and another, who I was when it came into my life and then each time I reflected on it.
I spent the whole day yesterday in such pain and melancholy because I lost my mother eight years ago. And as a mother myself, what stays with me is that “ mothering might be better understood as a verb: something we do, again and again, often without knowing how—or whether—it will be received.” It’s good to be reminded of that, I feel my mother mothering me even now, she is here alongside me always…💞💞. Thank you for your beautiful words and soul.
Just yesterday, looking for some misplaced thing, I found an old Raggety Anne doll I had given my adult daughter with special needs many, many years ago. Emily was not too impressed with her because she didn’t make music and my nonverbal girl has always been all about sound and music. One of our dogs had found Raggety Anne’s button eyes nice and crunchy and she was left with special needs herself. But the timing, as it often is, was perfect in finding her on the eve of Mother’s Day—always a bittersweet occasion especially after recently losing my mother at age 96. I brought Raggety Anne to Emily and showed her again how her pressed heart says : I love you. It took her some time to figure out how much and how little effort was needed to hear those magic words— music to my ears.
TY Beth. Have had your lovely, inspiring Slant of Sun on my bookshelf for many moons...over decades. (Hope Jeremy is doing well.). Best wishes to you always.
I once gifted my dearest friend, Amy, with a necklace and it was a black leather strap, with Kwan Yin,Buddhist deity of compassion. Many years later she painted a picture of Kwan Yin’s face. It’s been hanging in my bedroom for over 15 years. I miss Amy! She got covid in 2022 and that was it!
My mom made me two stuffed bears. One I named Donovan after the singer who was popular at the time. My parents, as far left intellectuals who were fiercely anti-establishment, hated on the Hallmark holidays, and I am grateful for that. One thing my mother always said, that I think of often, nearly 13 years after she died, is “pick your battles.” I think of it at home when I get upset at my very untidy husband, I think of it when I have an issue with a friend or not-friend. It remains, as always, good advice.
funny isn't it, that it only takes one simple little expression to affect our whole lives and make it better. my mother's words of wisdom were, "everybody has their own craziness." i think of it all the time. it has made me more tolerant and understanding of others.
I love this prompt for mothers day... my mother has taught me so much and was also the one never saying anything was impossible. I think it was she who told me I would be well enough to go back home to italy 🇮🇹 during my battle with Thrombocytopenia.... and I am waiting for my plane back to canada. She was right.
- you were right, about her purple hair being a warning sign, you were right that I was meant for more then just an office job, you were right that there is always a way when there is a vision. You were right that I would eventually get better even when I never felt it. You were right that there was nothing to worry about. You were right that I should have never left this country 15 years ago. You were right that I should have filled out my citizenship application before the laws changed. You were right that often the hard things are worth it. You were right that "she isnt worth your time if she cant even answer a simple text". You were right to focus on myself. You were right to leave it all behind. You were right.... you were always right mom. Always ❤️🔥
Mom was right...she told me, "You are not weird, you are unique. Once you embrace that truth, you will find your happiness." This is my second Mother's Day without her. The first one, I had been without her for two months, and felt something that "grief" does not begin to describe. Today, I recall how cherished I was...her middle child. And over the last two years, I not only understand what she meant, I believe it to my core.
Thank you, Gina. Mom would drop these pithy statements and as any good teenager does, I would internally do an eye roll. And now, all those statements flood back and I think, "Damn, Mom was a philosopher!"
Thank you, Beth. I am a lucky soul, to have had her as my mom. Leaving home was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, beause she was the one person in the world, who "got" me.
Well, of course, given it is Mother’s Day. How curious, growing up, what day wasn’t Mother’s Day? Seems as though every day was a gift from my mother. As children, the music we listened to at home was most often chosen by my mother. Especially when she sat at the piano, playing and singing with such fullness of joy, or reaching for joy. Today, I keep thinking of my mother’s quiet support when I declared myself a conscientious objector during the Vietnam disaster. My father proudly wore his Colonel’s army reserve uniform. My mother’s father, in the military during WW Ii, said of my decision “You’ve broken my heart”. When I had to face the draft board “men” to defend my position, my mother reassured me with her supportive presence. This was a major step into adulthood for me. A public stance on a situation that brought our various perspectives to the surface. I will forever be grateful. In the background I can “hear” my mother’s choice of music, day after day, Mahalia Jackson singing full heartedly. Amen.🏮
i figure that my mother made approximately 80,000 meals for my family. not a single one from a package. delicious gifts of love that kept us nourished, satisfied, and in communion. when i became a vegetarian at 14 -- before the word 'tofu' existed here -- she somehow learned to make amazing vegetarian meals in addition to everything else.
yesterday afternoon i took a long, deep nap in an easy chair until a lawn mower in the neighborhood started disturbing my sleep. "mum, can you come here?" i called out. and she walked in from the kitchen wearing her apron and stood next to me. i asked her to please close the window, which she did. then she said with whimsy, "i think i'll take a trip to europe."
"that's a great idea" i replied.
and then i wondered...could she really be standing next to me? here i am asleep in the chair, the lawn mower has quieted down, she's wearing her apron, she came from the kitchen, she spoke in her voice, i can clearly see her...i want to open my eyes. i want to know it's real. i told myself not to look, i told myself i had to. until the desire was too great to ignore.
when she comes to tell me about paris, i'll keep them closed.
What beautiful and touching messages today. The material objects laced with memories and meaning don’t come to mind so much as the love I always felt from my mom. Although she died way too young, I always felt lucky that I got so much love in that compressed time. More than anything, she taught me the value of relationships and the preciousness of time. She taught me to love deeply and cherish the moments. My wish is that my kids and grandkids will one day look back with the same understanding.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mother’s of the world. I’m sorry to all of you who have lost your Mom.
I am a longtime single father through sudden tragedy. My daughter was killed at age six by an impaired driver. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Most of what I learned about being a father, I learned through mothers in specific and women in general. I watched. I sat. I listened. I learned. I studied Mother Mary (I am a Protestant pastor) and Mother Teresa. Mary also lost a child in a violent and unjust way. Somehow, I came to be able to say, “I am grateful” not for what I endured, but for the love I learned and the spiritual gifts I received. My daughter’s name was and is Maya. - Dwight Lee Wolter.
Oh my heart 💔. Dwight, I am so deeply sorry for your loss. I am awestruck by the grace in which you see your own loss through a lens of gratitude for love learned. In the midst of so much darkness in the world, this feels like such a precious reminder of the power of love, and a loving community. Sending you much love, and to beautiful Maya also 💖
To Maya, Dwight. To her enduring presence.
Thank you, Beth.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
I am so sorry for your loss. What grace in finding gratitude for learned love and spiritual gifts. You bring this to your work with others.
You are an amazing soul, Dwight. Maya is a source of light, and you, the keeper of it. Thank you for this today.
I am so sorry for you loss. It is inconceivable to me as a parent. God bless you for finding the grace to not only endure but to express your journey in such a touching and beautiful post.
To Maya. ❤️
To learn to be grateful for love and spiritual gifts - beautiful! For Maya 🤲
It always seems like the greatest gifts are the ones in which we are given insight to see we have mattered somehow, which is why these gifts of acknowledgement, time or appreciation hit the heart so deeply. Because they say: you matter, you impacted someone/thing, you have value and worth, and I SEE YOU!!
The most precious gifts I have ever received were the quiet ones that showed me someone took time to think about how I meant something to them in a way I didn’t expect. The unexpected message. The note left somewhere random. The responsibilities put aside to share time together. A glance across a room. A kind word of encouragement. It makes me want to pay it forward, to extend those kindness to others, fully understanding how meaningful it can be.
"I SEE YOU" and a Mom's "TIME" are incredible gifts! and they are essentially free to give.
The free gifts always manage to be the best ones, hey? ☺️
The very best kind of gifts. I agree, Sabrina.
Totally!!!
The gift I remember most from my mother, now long passed, was not a physical thing that immediately jumps to mind. It was not a toy, a keepsake, or some treasured object preserved in a box in the attic. It was ballast.
And perhaps that is the strange thing about memory itself: we rarely preserve the object as carefully as we preserve the feeling behind it. The toy fades, the ribbon frays, the photograph yellows...but the sense of being loved, steadied, and quietly protected can remain for decades.
At least ballast is the word I would use now, many years later, after submarines, illness, loss, and enough storms in life to finally understand what she had quietly been giving all along.
My mother gave me what I think most good mothers try to give their children: steadiness. She taught me how to love, how to learn, how to remain curious about the world even when it disappointed me. She was my first coach, first encourager, first quiet voice reminding me that I could probably handle more than I believed I could.
And perhaps most importantly, she created something invisible but enduring, the feeling that there was always a place behind me that remained safe even after I ventured far beyond it.
Like many young men, I eventually disappeared into the world chasing careers, responsibilities, ambitions, and distant oceans. I served aboard submarines where we spoke often of ballast and trim...the hidden systems that kept the vessel steady beneath enormous pressure. Only much later did I realize my mother had been doing something remarkably similar all along.
Children rarely notice ballast while they are inside it. They simply experience it as normal life: encouragement, warm meals, rides to school, someone listening, someone believing, someone still there after failure. Only after years pass do you realize those quiet acts were holding your entire psychological world in balance.
Even now, long after her passing, I still feel the effect of that invisible gift. Not as grief exactly, but as a kind of internal steadiness that remains during difficult moments, an emotional equilibrium that still whispers, You can handle this. Keep going.
That is the strange thing about certain gifts. They do not sit on shelves or gather dust in closets. They become part of the structure holding you upright.
My mother did not hand me ballast directly. She slowly filled the tanks over years of ordinary love. And even now, decades later, somewhere beneath the pressure hull of my life, that ballast remains.
Ordinary love is the most extraordinary love.
Rex - this is a whole essay!! It’s so beautiful, and feels like a guide for parenting with love and tenderness. Everything about it felt like an ode to memory, to childhood, to preciousness and steadiness. Wow. I will read this more than once. Really, so beautiful.
Oh thank you, that is very humbling. Humbling… is that the right word? I’ll go with it.
Sometimes I joke that I suffer from a condition called “word vomit,” where thoughts and memories just spill out faster than I can organize them. But underneath all of it, I think what I was really trying to say is something very simple.
A few weeks ago at my granddaughter’s baseball game, I told my grown children: “Be there. See her. Cheer for her. That’s all she really wants and needs.”
And you could see it instantly in her beaming grin.
Maybe that’s the ballast parents give us...the feeling that someone showed up, noticed us, believed in us, and kept cheering even after we stumbled a little.
Thank you again for such a kind response.
Beautiful!
youza!! you said it all. when my mother died my oldest brother was 71. he said he felt like he had lost his safe harbor. she was always the place he could come back to for grounding, love, security, advise, rest.
Judith, I think many of us only fully understand what our parents quietly gave us after they are gone. Not perfection, not answers to everything, but the deep reassurance that somewhere in the world there existed "a place" we could return to and still be loved, grounded, and known. Even at 71, your brother’s words make perfect sense to me. I know that feeling as both my parents have passed... it's sort of an empty space. Thank you for sharing that.
Suleika I am a longtime fan of your work and first time commenter. These words brought me a lot of joy and comfort. Thank you for always being true and sharing your work in such a meaningful and engaging way that brings me such inspiration every time. I hope and pray you are doing well💛
Welcome to the friendliest, most loving, inspiring comment section on Substack!!! 🥰 The souls here are amazing, the community nourishing.
this post hit the nail on it's head! if only i had the understanding at the time when mom would rule with her finger, "wait until you have kids...you'll see" and i had no clue what I would be waiting to see. Ingrates I'd say at the time when raising mine. Look what I've done for you and this is how you treat me...oh well maybe I was looking for something a child isn't supposed to provide a mother? A question to which I've longed to find an answer. My kids, now men with kids of their own from teens to college to a married expectant father those kind of kids who are adolescents and young adults in training; finding their way through the social constructs now with social media, the curse that keeps on giving. There will always be a story to be shared and at almost 84 years young I am waiting to tell mine before my memory completely fades away to whomever will listen.
Your listeners are there, waiting.
One thing we treasure is a set of tapes of my father-in-law reminiscing in his old age with his sisters. Another is a videotape that is part of the Holocaust Museum's collection of my great aunt talking about her life.
If it is impractical for you to write the stories you hope to survive you, do consider having someone interview and record you or take notes to transcribe. It is best not to wait too long to tell our stories. My mother waited too long and we now have to guess to assemble the pieces.
You got me again Suleika! I am so moved by what you wrote. As the mother of three girls – age 17, 23, and 26 – I am completely resonating with what you wrote. My hand is on my heart and was the entire time I’ve read this. I am touched so much on this Mother’s Day, which is a great gift.
Oh my goodness, your comment was so endearing and also had me laughing out loud!!! I loved all of this!
Hello All. " It makes me think about the ways love is carried—sometimes in words, sometimes in objects, sometimes in the things we keep and keep returning to, long after the moment has passed." Both readings are beautiful I think because it is Mother's Day and we are getting ready to sell the house and move there is so much for me about this. My life has had trauma and grief from childhood. And what stood out today is my mom's love for books. She took us often to the bookmobile. And the other is realizing what is ok to let go of as far as objects. And how much my heart holds to keep all that I need and know. Have a blessed day.
Gina, I wholeheartedly agree. The most important things our Mothers gave us often stop living in objects and begin living quietly inside us. Sometimes it’s a love of books, curiosity, resilience, or simply the feeling of having once been deeply cared for. The objects help us remember, but the real inheritance often becomes part of who we are.
What a beautiful gift, that feeling of having been deeply cared for.
Beautifully said❤️
Gina, it is so very hard to pack things up, to separate things out, to decide. Your heart is capacious. It does hold so much. But I honor where you are, in this transition.
I was thinking of this just yesterday, looking around at my bookcases in particular and feeling that culling would be so impossible. My books also tend to have my underlinings, so there are two stories in effect in any book, what the book said as well as how I interacted with it at the time of our encounter.
Objects too- I am surprised at how much history I actually remember for most of what I have, its provenance in my life. It is as if I am surrounded by transitional objects that sit in a liminal space between me and another, who I was when it came into my life and then each time I reflected on it.
having different eyes and reflection. Thank you for sharing
This is such a beautiful reflection Gina. Seeing a gift in so many places - people, moments, objects. All held ultimately in the heart. ♥️
❤️
The gift of reading, opening the cover and going to many worlds. I hope you and she remember the stories that stay with you no matter where you live.
I spent the whole day yesterday in such pain and melancholy because I lost my mother eight years ago. And as a mother myself, what stays with me is that “ mothering might be better understood as a verb: something we do, again and again, often without knowing how—or whether—it will be received.” It’s good to be reminded of that, I feel my mother mothering me even now, she is here alongside me always…💞💞. Thank you for your beautiful words and soul.
Thank you so much for sharing. And I am so sorry for your loss.
Wishing you peace on this day, as you lean, still, toward your mother's wisdoms.
Wish you a day surrounded by love Shruti.
Just yesterday, looking for some misplaced thing, I found an old Raggety Anne doll I had given my adult daughter with special needs many, many years ago. Emily was not too impressed with her because she didn’t make music and my nonverbal girl has always been all about sound and music. One of our dogs had found Raggety Anne’s button eyes nice and crunchy and she was left with special needs herself. But the timing, as it often is, was perfect in finding her on the eve of Mother’s Day—always a bittersweet occasion especially after recently losing my mother at age 96. I brought Raggety Anne to Emily and showed her again how her pressed heart says : I love you. It took her some time to figure out how much and how little effort was needed to hear those magic words— music to my ears.
Susan, this is a beautiful story about the life and life-giving of a doll.
TY Beth. Have had your lovely, inspiring Slant of Sun on my bookshelf for many moons...over decades. (Hope Jeremy is doing well.). Best wishes to you always.
Goodness, Susan. Thank you. And yes, thank you for your best wishes, too. Our children grow up and amaze us, each day.
What a tender story Susan!!!
I once gifted my dearest friend, Amy, with a necklace and it was a black leather strap, with Kwan Yin,Buddhist deity of compassion. Many years later she painted a picture of Kwan Yin’s face. It’s been hanging in my bedroom for over 15 years. I miss Amy! She got covid in 2022 and that was it!
So sorry for the loss of your friend Sherri.
Sherri, I am so sorry for your loss of Amy. A necklace as a talisman is such a beautiful way to remember.
My mom made me two stuffed bears. One I named Donovan after the singer who was popular at the time. My parents, as far left intellectuals who were fiercely anti-establishment, hated on the Hallmark holidays, and I am grateful for that. One thing my mother always said, that I think of often, nearly 13 years after she died, is “pick your battles.” I think of it at home when I get upset at my very untidy husband, I think of it when I have an issue with a friend or not-friend. It remains, as always, good advice.
funny isn't it, that it only takes one simple little expression to affect our whole lives and make it better. my mother's words of wisdom were, "everybody has their own craziness." i think of it all the time. it has made me more tolerant and understanding of others.
I got very similar advice from my parents before I got married! I’m also not a fan of the Hallmark holidays (I love that term lol!!)
I love this prompt for mothers day... my mother has taught me so much and was also the one never saying anything was impossible. I think it was she who told me I would be well enough to go back home to italy 🇮🇹 during my battle with Thrombocytopenia.... and I am waiting for my plane back to canada. She was right.
- you were right, about her purple hair being a warning sign, you were right that I was meant for more then just an office job, you were right that there is always a way when there is a vision. You were right that I would eventually get better even when I never felt it. You were right that there was nothing to worry about. You were right that I should have never left this country 15 years ago. You were right that I should have filled out my citizenship application before the laws changed. You were right that often the hard things are worth it. You were right that "she isnt worth your time if she cant even answer a simple text". You were right to focus on myself. You were right to leave it all behind. You were right.... you were always right mom. Always ❤️🔥
Emily this reads like a beautiful prayer to your mom!!
Thank you!! ❤️🔥
Mom was right...she told me, "You are not weird, you are unique. Once you embrace that truth, you will find your happiness." This is my second Mother's Day without her. The first one, I had been without her for two months, and felt something that "grief" does not begin to describe. Today, I recall how cherished I was...her middle child. And over the last two years, I not only understand what she meant, I believe it to my core.
Thank you so much for sharing your mother's lovely wisdom. And I am so sorry for your loss
Thank you, Gina. Mom would drop these pithy statements and as any good teenager does, I would internally do an eye roll. And now, all those statements flood back and I think, "Damn, Mom was a philosopher!"
I am thinking of you, Mary. And how much you feel your mother's love.
Thank you, Beth. I am a lucky soul, to have had her as my mom. Leaving home was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, beause she was the one person in the world, who "got" me.
What a grounding bit of wisdom to give you. Wishing you love today.
Thank you, Sabrina. She was the kindest soul and also had the most delightful sense of humor and whimsy on top of everything else.
Well, of course, given it is Mother’s Day. How curious, growing up, what day wasn’t Mother’s Day? Seems as though every day was a gift from my mother. As children, the music we listened to at home was most often chosen by my mother. Especially when she sat at the piano, playing and singing with such fullness of joy, or reaching for joy. Today, I keep thinking of my mother’s quiet support when I declared myself a conscientious objector during the Vietnam disaster. My father proudly wore his Colonel’s army reserve uniform. My mother’s father, in the military during WW Ii, said of my decision “You’ve broken my heart”. When I had to face the draft board “men” to defend my position, my mother reassured me with her supportive presence. This was a major step into adulthood for me. A public stance on a situation that brought our various perspectives to the surface. I will forever be grateful. In the background I can “hear” my mother’s choice of music, day after day, Mahalia Jackson singing full heartedly. Amen.🏮
and i like doris day because of my mother :-)
Wow - what a powerful memory David. It oozes with the strength and conviction you carried, and her love in supporting you.
Truly. What day is not Mother's Day, somehow?
i figure that my mother made approximately 80,000 meals for my family. not a single one from a package. delicious gifts of love that kept us nourished, satisfied, and in communion. when i became a vegetarian at 14 -- before the word 'tofu' existed here -- she somehow learned to make amazing vegetarian meals in addition to everything else.
yesterday afternoon i took a long, deep nap in an easy chair until a lawn mower in the neighborhood started disturbing my sleep. "mum, can you come here?" i called out. and she walked in from the kitchen wearing her apron and stood next to me. i asked her to please close the window, which she did. then she said with whimsy, "i think i'll take a trip to europe."
"that's a great idea" i replied.
and then i wondered...could she really be standing next to me? here i am asleep in the chair, the lawn mower has quieted down, she's wearing her apron, she came from the kitchen, she spoke in her voice, i can clearly see her...i want to open my eyes. i want to know it's real. i told myself not to look, i told myself i had to. until the desire was too great to ignore.
when she comes to tell me about paris, i'll keep them closed.
Oh my gosh.
oh ya, exactly how it happened. she is often in my dreams, always a very happy event. but this time it was completely blended with reality.
What beautiful and touching messages today. The material objects laced with memories and meaning don’t come to mind so much as the love I always felt from my mom. Although she died way too young, I always felt lucky that I got so much love in that compressed time. More than anything, she taught me the value of relationships and the preciousness of time. She taught me to love deeply and cherish the moments. My wish is that my kids and grandkids will one day look back with the same understanding.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mother’s of the world. I’m sorry to all of you who have lost your Mom.
Sheri, thank you.
The preciousness of time. This is a really beautiful statement.
Mama was right. Love it!
My deceased mother deserved such a gift. I will make one as a memorial to her.
It will be on blush pink paper with lettering in gold. I will be intentional in my use of it in public spaces. Good message to spread to all.