Mothers--and Their Love and Loyalty

Often it takes perspective to know ho much something means. This would be true of mothers, in our awareness of how much they mean. In our years of youth, we hardly have occasion to appraise the part they perform. So well they keep things running that we are hardly aware of how they keep things running so well. So well they take off the edge of our deeper disappointments that we hardly realize how well they comfort and encourage. We may sometimes be impatient; we may sometimes seem annoyed by their teaching, by their counsel and concern. But in our more reasonable moments, even early in life we seem somewhat to sense their strength, their service, and their selflessness, and some meaning of their love and loyalty. And even early, we somewhat sense the emptiness we feel when they are absent, with some awareness of how much they one day will be missed. “My mother was an angel upon earth . . .,” said John Quincy Adams. “She had no feelings but of kindness and beneficence . . . . She had known sorrow, but her sorrow was silent . . . . If there is existence and retribution beyond the grave, my mother is happy.” From her childhood, Louisa May Alcott recalled a note left in her room by her mother: “I have observed all day your patience with baby, your obedience and kindness to all. Go on trying, my child. God will give you strength and courage. I shall say a little prayer over you in your sleep. Mother.” Such kindly memories of mother inspired the poet later to write these lines:

“Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time;

Hope that defied despair;

Patience that conquered care;

And loyalty, whose courage was sublime;

The great deep heart that was a home for all,−

Just, eloquent, and strong

In protest against wrong;

Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall;

The Spartan spirit that made life so grand,

Mating poor daily needs

With high, heroic deeds,

That wrested happiness from Fate’s hard hands.”

It is a hallowed thing to have such memories of mothers. May mothers in the sacred trust that God has given them, continue to make such memories; and may we always remember mothers, and the blessed memories they make.