Small, Gentle Memories…of Mother

“The mother memories that are closest to my heart,” wrote Margaret Sangster, “are the small genteel ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They aren’t profound, save as loveliness is profound. They aren’t dramatic unless tenderness can be termed drama. But they have stayed with me through life, and I think that when I am very old, they will still be near. Small gentle memories of Mother drying my tears…of Mother reading aloud…of Mother cutting cookies…and singing as she did…of Mother listening to the prayers I said as I knelt with my forehead pressed against her knee. Of Mother tucking me into bed across the world—through fear and disappoint and disillusionment and heartbreak and temptation. They have given my…life such a firm foundation that it does not rock beneath flood or tempest…” Most blest are they who have such memories—memories of gentle hands, of kindly words, of sweet encouragement, of nursing in illness, of watching quietly in the background without intruding too much, of waiting, of wondering, worrying—always patiently waiting, quieting our fears, easing our hurts, understanding our hearts, and our feeling that all was safe for us because Mother was there. And most remarkable about mothers is how they come to be what they are. “No calling…is more exacting…no vocation of comparable significance has been accorded such scant preparation,” said one observer, [yet] “the Mother sets the standard of the home…” And in all of this, in so divine a calling, we doubt not mothers are especially blessed in their prayerful, loving, unselfishness, sacrifice, and gentle wise counsel with answers and insight beyond the wisdom of books. “And say to mothers what a holy charge is theirs—with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the new-born mind.” Would that no child would grow old without the memory of such mothers.