Happy Mother's Day...

Thank you Rick, for this great doodle. If my mom was still alive she would laugh out loud at this one after raising six children.

Every one of her six were blessed to have her as our mom. She could soothe a skinned knee or a broken heart with a gentle touch and a sweet word. I know that she bound our family together with love and kindness. Every evening she cooked and put a meal on the table and we would eat and share our day.

Every morning she fixed our breakfast, getting us off to school with our tummies full and looking forward to another day of learning. When we came home from school there was always something to snack on to keep us from starving until suppertime.

Mom sewed a lot of our clothes, repaired tears in our clothes and sometimes our friend's clothes. Our next door neighbor's two kids, a girl and a boy, always knew that they could talk to mom if they had problems. or they could find a little snack if they were hungry.

I can remember when I was very small the hobos would sometimes show up to see if they could do any little chore for food. Mom would find something, whether it was to rake the back yard or pull weeds or whatever and she would go in and fix a plate of whatever she had around. Not a skimpy plate, either, but a good heaping plate full of food. The fellows would sit on the back steps to eat and would always hand back an empty plate, with grateful looks in their eyes and a "thank you for your kindness, ma'am" from their lips.

My mother was the most christian person I knew. She lived her life, every moment of every day, with the knowledge that whatever she faced, her Lord would sustain her. Mom's mother and father both passed and we saw her bear up under those losses, but when my oldest sister died, at twenty three years of age, is when mom was put to the ultimate test. You are not supposed to outlive your children, she'd occasionally say, but if she ever railed against God, as I did, she never, ever did it where anyone would see it. She carried such love in her heart that despite the great loss she still loved her Lord.

I think I would not be half the person I am today if not for my mom. And I think she knew that before she died. And I know she knew that she was much loved.