a mother's day

My grandmother in 1950, holding her firstborn. She would go on to birth four more, all daughters, and carry 3 more never born. Faye, was only one in a line of strong women, and that turned out to be everything considering how many she left behind, how many also became strong.

There are those kept from ever going home again, home as it was once, to say the least. But she learned that home is where she was, had been, and would be. There was no height or depth that could take it from her, or them- Romans 8 tells the parallel.

Thoughts on a mother’s Day…

for her, a fourth displaced, yet more in place than has been: Some could never let on how much good she was.

“Make sure she has no inkling. Let her believe there is no need for her.”

Even the traces, which came only few, were shrouded in shoulds and layered logistics- to improve her performance, and all for His glory, and his glory- always.

“Say amen.”

She said it well.

They made themselves gods of anything conquerable. Competitive can do no justice.

But when it came to mothering, there was no competition-

It’s in the going and the coming, Motherhood. One cannot make it up.

“Okay, I’m coming,” and she finishes the line, holding her breath.

8:02 a.m. The day following will come soon, at 8:02 a.m.

She sits to order their Mother’s Day dinner, gets distracted in the emotion of IT all, writes a line instead- gets up to return to the card game as his little voice calls to her, then remembering, “Ahh! I forgot to order the pizza. I’m coming.” — she calls out to promise while sitting back down to the browser, this time to focus. Her presence delayed for them again. With this, they are acquainted.

Delayed presence and promises. Delayed begin to any forever without such. She wearily promises them, will come in time, just not at this moment. They struggle to believe what they have not seen, in the years which are more than half their lives now. The littlest not even recalling, having been too young to have formed the words for it.

“I wish I could be a baby again, Mama. If you had another baby, would it go back to how it was?” -the determined one.

Oh, the mind of a child- precious, innocent, fragile. Brilliantly capable, her strong, enduring soul.

“What are you doing? Who are you writing this too?” -the Brave one asks as he rounds the corner into the room. She answers with truth he can understand.

“Writing to myself,” she says. He asks her who the brave the one is. She answers, and he protests he “is not brave.” She tells him why he is. Everyday she tells him why he is.

She thought she’d have to hide, but there’s a lot that can be said without prior approval, even if one is a woman.

That has been a difficult task for her to maneuver.

As meeting pain, it is hard.
Like baring the weight, alone- it is hard.

-and today, it’s just another day, a mother’s day, on Mother’s Day, depictive of a mother’s Life, and the home she makes.

She is their Home, another day,
until they’re gone.

But they will return in time. Nothing can separate, no height or depth. A mother’s love, a child’s home, the knowing of safe, of serene, of secure. There is only one parallel, and nothing can separate.