My mother wants me to write for her …
You wrote for Daddy, she said.
Now write a little something for me too.
Such is Mummy.
Satisfied with love.
So here’s to you Mummy!
Happy 60th!
Sometimes I think, being a mother is all she ever knows.
She had three boys by the time she was twenty eight.
Daddy worked two jobs, to feed us.
Leaving Mummy to handle three hyperactive boys.
And she did.
Daddy got laid off and was too old to find another job.
While Dad did his carpentry, Mummy figured, she could teach.
With three boys and the home and hearth and god knows how many of the neighbours kids wanting to learn from her.
All this she did.
Well, God’s taking care of us, she thought.
I should give back, she thought
And we don’t have money.
So let me work for him.
With three boys and the home and the little kids coming to learn, there is a little time to go around supporting the Church
As an animator, as an educational resource, an area coordinator, a parish coordinator, a eucharistic minister, a sunday school teacher…
This she did.
And she slogged and struggled and cried and laughed and made her way through life.
She did.
We’re a houseful of boys.
But Mummy’s the strongest.
She carries us all through life.
Her infectous laugh, her naïveté, her determination, her enormous work ethic, have not only inspired us, but a whole generation of people around her.
What little she had, she’s made so much of.
We certainly did not make life any easier for her.
But she still loves us no matter what.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Thus says the Bible.
That’s my mother, says I
A life well lived, that’s my mother.
All that, she is.