Mother’s Day is this Sunday. My mother has been gone 21 years and each Mother’s Day since I have felt adrift. It’s painful to see advertisements everywhere for Mother’s Day gifts, flowers and dinners knowing my mother, who deserved to be honored every minute of every day, is no longer here to be celebrated on a day set aside for all mothers. I suppose most people feel their mothers were special. I know my mother was not perfect, but I always felt it would be difficult if not impossible to fill her shoes. We were a large Irish Catholic family and it was a hectic but great life until the day my father suddenly died at the age of 44. My mother was left with eleven children, a bedridden mother and, save my paternal grandmother and aunt, precious little support. She shouldered her burden with grace, infinite patience and a selflessness that was a wonder to behold. I never heard her say, “Why me?” When people would ask her how she managed, she would reply that she had no choice. And that was true, but many other people have crumpled under burdens far less crippling than she carried. She went back to school at night to earn a master’s degree in order to better provide for us. She extolled the virtues of a college education, a lesson not all my siblings heeded. In fact one of my brothers once quipped that we all insisted on learning things the hard way which was true enough for some of us. Our door was always open to anyone needing a helping hand. When one of us would ask if someone could stay for dinner, the answer was always, “What’s one more?” She made Christmas a special occasion for several families in town on more than one occasion while she went without a new coat or shoes she sorely needed. One Christmas she received a phone call from a friend who worked in a home for what used to be called “wayward boys”. There were several boys who had no families to go to for Christmas. Not only did she take them in, she managed to have gifts for them to open on Christmas morning with next to no notice. There are two stories I particularly love about my mother. One I never heard until her retirement party. A neighbor, who had also been her obstetrician, shared that when he first opened his practice and was talking to new patients about items they would need the women would tell him not to worry because Sis Flood would get them what was needed. He began thinking that Portland had the best social worker. It wasn’t until my mother came to him as a patient that he realized she wasn’t the social worker, but just an incredibly good-hearted person. The other story relates to a night in the late sixties or early seventies. Several of my older siblings had been to a concert somewhere, arriving home quite late. The next morning my mother made the rounds to make sure all my brothers were up for their summer jobs. On her second go round she noticed one of them hadn’t moved. After poking my brother to make sure he was awake, a face she had never seen before came out from under the covers. Unruffled, my mother asked him who he was and he explained that one of my brothers had offered him a bed for the night. After she fed him breakfast (What’s one more?”) she asked him what he was doing or where he was going. He told her he was just bumming around, but he would like a ride to the train station if she could manage it. She asked him where he was from and asked him how long it had been since he’d been home. She eventually agreed to give him a ride to the train station, but only after he promised to call his mother and let her know that he was alive and well. She knew all too well how much worry a mother bore when her children, no matter their age, were out of sight. My mother did not have an easy life in many respects. Her young life was touched by tragedy, she lost her husband at a young age with no warning, she suffered ill health as she aged and unfortunately her kids did not always make her life any easier. In spite of that, she had resilience and an outlook on life that gave her the ability to keep moving forward and to surmount obstacles that would have caused most normal people to cry uncle. She was my mother and I am proud to be her daughter. I am mindful also this week of my niece and nephew who lost their mother in October. I want them to know I am thinking of them this Mother’s Day. Their mother was my eldest sister and my strongest ally. Her loss is still new and keenly felt. I hope they know she was a mother to all of her siblings as well, especially after my mother died and we all share the loss they will feel this Sunday. If you still have your mother, be kind to her not only on Sunday, but every day. If she lives to be one hundred, I guarantee you that the day she is gone and you are suddenly a motherless child, whether you are 20 or 80, your place in the world will feel completely different. If you have to, forgive her for things she might have done, but make sure she knows you love her anyway.
