Posted by
Billy on Monday, May 12, 2008 12:36:05 PM
Yesterday was Mother's Day. I hope all of you who has a mom living was able to show your love to her. Below is part of a column which was in my local paper.
Jessica Clem wrote this tribute to her late mother, Laurie Clem. The younger Clem grew up in Palmyra, Neb., and now lives in Omaha.
Ideally, Mother's Day begins with brunch. Perhaps a breakfast served in bed, with a peppering of roses, a tennis bracelet, relief from the day's chores. Maybe tiny hands are pressed against her lips, teenage palms turned upward, this time not for money, but for her hand. On this day, mother is worshipped.
My Mother's Day is not to begin this way. Instead, my palms will be clasped against one another. I, too, will be worshipping my mother, not in physical presence, but in memory.
Feeling pliable, despite the boxiness of the Reeboks, I danced in front of the mirror, feeling powerful. I wanted to be just like her.
Four years later, I told her these things while she was in the hospital. I rubbed cucumber lotion on her arms, her skin dry and papery from the IVs. I had grown tenfold overnight, she had grown weaker. Stage 4 breast cancer ravaged her body. I tell her these moments again and again. I felt her chest constrict with a faint laugh, and I smiled for that moment of happiness.
At 36, this diagnosis was simply not fair. At 14, I couldn't be ready for what the few weeks she had left would entail. At 5, my brother was too young to be without his mother. At 39, my dad silently cried like an abandoned infant. Combined, my family was sinking. Sinking at Christmastime. The holiday spirit wasn't enough to keep the life in my mother's eyes.
(Do read the rest of this powerful column Mother's spirit alive in daughter and then you just might be thankful if your mom is still living because chances are there will be a time she is no longer in this world. God Bless Mother's.)
