The Mother of Us All

 

 

I'm back, was away for a time because my Mum's been ill.  What was diagnosed as flu, morphed into perforated bowel and emergency surgery, late Saturday.  She's still in Intensive Care but should be allowed to move to the surgery recovery floor soon.

When a parent is ill, family dynamics launch into intense versions of themselves.  As in all families, this is good and bad.  Anxieties get out of control.  Everyone scrambles to be helpful in whatever ways he or she is able.

We are a large family, wide-spread across generations and geography.  Mum is a mother of five, grandmother of seven, great-grandmother of eleven, plus all the in-laws and ex's. 

She is "The Mother of Us All."  And in crisis, we draw near, holding Mum in love and prayers, journeying with her toward her healing.

The healing may take awhile, so I may not be here as much as usual.  For now, it is more important to draw near and to accompany Mum.

Happy Mother's Day 2012

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day wishes to Julie, Pascale, Jeannette, Melanie and Melissa.  I send hugs and love, and gratitude for who you are, gratitude for all you do to make this earth a place where your children, my eleven grandchildren can grow and flourish.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother. 

And for you a story…

On Mother’s Day, when I was ten (and for several years after that), I plagiarised a poem by Edgar A. Guest, as a gift for my mother.  The poem was called “She Mothered Five.”  Each year, I adjusted the words and the lines to make the verses appropriate for whatever was happening in our family of five children.  Guest’s sentimental verses about everyday life appealed to my ten year old sensibilities.  Mum mothered five of us for 25 years until my brother died in an accident; then there were four of us, four girls left.

When I was a teenager, I stopped stealing poems for my mother, switched to flowers or homemade offerings.  I remember going through an obnoxious stage where we called her “The Imperial Dragon”… yes, to her face.  She didn’t seem to mind.  Five adolescents required fire-breathing dragon-like parenting.  We all survived…sometimes toasted at the edges.

My Mother’s Day gifts and remembrances have evolved.  And they continue because it’s fun to remind my mother that I love her and that I am grateful for what she has taught me, for what she has given me.

Today I'm making her brunch and I’ll give her a bottle of Dubonnet; no doubt, she could have used that when we were teenagers.   I’m glad she’s my Mum and that she had the strength and the courage to mother the five of us.

I’ll tell her I love her… and, of course say "Happy Mother’s Day."

Photo is mine.