Blessed Mothers--and Sweet Memories

Songs my mother taught me,
In the day long vanish’d,
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banish’d.
Now I teach my children
Each melodious measure,
Oft the teardrops flowing,
Oft they flow from my mem’ry’s treasure.

Blessed are the memories of a mother’s sweet singing. Blessed are they who have such memories of mothers.
We remember mothers, who by the clock and by the calendar, couldn’t have had much time as we have now, but who somehow seemed to take time. From back there, the mothers we remember had bread to make, and stocking to darn, and sewing to do, and carpets to sweep, and dishes to wash, and food to cook, and food to prepare for the winter, and sickness sometimes to attend to, and kind services to take to neighbors in need.
They were old early, some of those mothers we remember, but they were patient, they were good, they were wonderful, as mothers are.
Blessed are the memories of a blessed mother. Mother’s arms open to us, her voice lifting our hearts.
We knew the safe and hallowed feeling of prayer said at mother’s knee and the reassuring good night touch as the light was turned out and the covers pulled tight and the blessed feeling that all was well because mother had said so: a mother who read, a mother who sang, who understood; a mother who was home when we went there; a mother who had fixed standards and firm ideas of right and wrong, and was capable of quiet discipline, and quietly and consistently lived her life even as she taught us to live.
There are many important things to take the time of mothers these days. But earnestly, urgently, we would say to young mothers: Take time to be there when you are needed, when you are wanted. Take time for open arms; take time for talking and for counsel and correction; take time for sitting down with them, for reading, for singing, for family prayer, for home evenings and hours. Take time with the children for the making of memories, for fixing sure foundations that will last long after less essential things are far forgotten.
God bless mothers⎯and sweet memories⎯and bless young mothers who even now are making memories for their children.