Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed.
Happy Mothers Day Everyone. I Miss our Mum everyday..
In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt called on women to pull the country through the crisis of the Great Depression. In her book It’s Up to the Women she wrote, “The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must be met and it is their courage and determination which, time and again, have pulled us through worse crises than the present one.”
My Mother came from a stoic stock and taught us to evolve, adapt and be ever changing to the needs of the current environment. Although I miss our Mum every day, I give thanks for her wisdom, for the stoicism she taught us through her actions through life.
Every Mother generally has a story of hardship her her life or a memory of her Mothers life. Our Mum suffered through unimaginable atrocities in her early life which she was only able to speak of in her later life and which probably hardened her resolve to get through what life threw at her until the end of her lifes journey 2 years ago. Watching her battle for 20 years with Cancer and witnesses her grace and strength as she buried her husband then youngest daughter within 12 months and ultimately had to say goodbye herself to this life a year later was a life lesson more powerful than can be conveyed in words. In our life, we only ever witnessed Mum giving back.. I often asked her how she could do what she did for prisoners, the homeless, the marginalised, the afflicted, how could she give all that and still be there for every need her 5 children and many grandchildren & great grandchildren.. she said: I don’t know, I just do… That’s it, the power of a woman and the extra power of a mother… ….. As Eleanor Roosevelt says above: “The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must be met and it is their courage and determination which, time and again, have pulled us through worse crises than the present one”… That was our Mum…
Her last night on this earth I witnessed, one more time, the ultimate display of a Mothers love.. As sick as she was and 17 blood transfusions later, at midnight, the dread and fear of the situation looming, not being able to sleep, I said, Mum, I need your help with prep for an upcoming event I have to present at and I want to demonstrate turban tying… Without a second thought, up she propped, told me to get her scarf from her bag and come over here and she would show me a trick… It was like the dying hours were gone and here is Mum helping her daughter learn something new again… It’s was a remarkable 30 minutes and a final memory that will warm my heart forever, it was a true testament of a Mothers instinct to put herself behind the love of her children.. Here are our selfies in that moment…
Her unwavering faith and optimism are probably the two traits I rely on to balance and ground me when I fear the future..
Mum had (as I believe all Mums do) this uncanny knack of knowing how to love us all as if we were the only ones … She once said that she loved us all differently but all as much as the other and everyone one of us kids and grandkids felt we were her number 1.
I’ll always be grateful that we had time to enjoy Mum, share, love and create memories that will last our lifetime.
Happy Mothers Day (Biological, surrogate, spiritual or other – A Mother is a Mother) to all our Mums in our Charming World.
