Mother’s Day “Do-Over” to My Wife

I wanted to write a new Mother’s Day message.  Then I re-read the one I wrote last year.  Pretty good.  I figured maybe by now you forgot what it said.  You do forget where you put your keys, right?  My gut, though, told me “no.”  One sentence and it would all come rushing back.  But I decided to live dangerously, because I still mean now with all my heart what I wrote then.  (Don’t even bother adding a year to the ages mentioned here.  You’ll feel better.)  Don’t read this as a rerun from a lazy husband.  Read it as a renewal from a loving one.  (And if you think I’m taking the easy way out, you won’t have to buy me that convertible for Christmas.)

Before I “copy and paste” . . . Some things have changed since last Mother’s Day—primarily my health.  It’s worsened and you’ve had an old guy who sometimes must make you feel you’ve got another child.  (I’ve noticed when babies drool people laugh at the cutey-pie.  But when old people drool it’s a silent, “Yuk.”  Thankfully, I’m not drooling yet—just spotting my shirt with some supper or saving a bit of  salad cheese in my beard for later.)  Anyway, you’ve loved me “for . . . worse” without complaint.  I love you so much for loving me, especially  when you’re getting less love in return. (Remember those younger years when I was like Don Ju-an?  Now I’m more like Don Knotts.)    At least, please know it’s there, deep in my heart.  Thank you for serving me in love.  Daily I see Jesus in you.

Okay.  Now the “renewal” of last year’s “Happy Mother’s Day” . . .

* * *

  As fatherhood changes with time, so, of course, does motherhood.

During those young years, anyone watching silently from the sidelines  would have assumed you’d  trained for years.  A Masters in Motherhood?  Know-how picked up from your mother?  I always felt I was learning fatherhood in the doing–or maybe after the doing.  You, on the other hand, seemed to intuitively know what a mother should do and say in every situation.  It was as if God put a “mother gene” in you from the start.

But you were never–what should I say–an old-fashioned mother baking pies and sewing diapers and saying things like, “Land sakes alive!”  You did bake great pies and cook delicious meals, but, Land Sakes Alive what stress in the doing and what mess in the clean-up!  What you produced was always wonderful, but Kitchen was never your God-gifted room.

You were always beautiful, attractive, classy.  Never the kind of mother to be mistaken for Aunt Henrietta from Kansas or Elizabeth Taylor with a face-lift.

You were always godly, Christ-devoted.  Our children surely knew where you stood with Jesus–behind him, following him.  You talked about that.  You taught them that.  And you lived that before them.  You have been a fine instrument in the hand of the Master shaping the lives of your children.  Did you blunder sometimes?  Of course.  But the Master even used those blunders for his good.  (By the way, in the process you’ve been a fine instrument in the Master’s hand shaping me, too.)

Now we’re both 70.  (It’s okay, nobody reads this.)  Our three children are adults with their own children, making you “Grammy” to eight ranging from 20 years old to five.  So motherhood has changed.  Yet your “mother gene” keeps working.  You know how to be a mother to adult children.  A tricky tightrope to walk!  Mother and friend and intercessor before the Father.  You know how to be a grandmother–loving, sacrificing, giving, wise, faithful and above all godly.  Blunders?  Sure, still some.  But God still turns them into good.  And you still are so beautiful to me–and, I think if they thought about it, to our children and grandchildren too.  Beautiful outside, even more on the inside.

I know.  I’m your husband.  I’ve stood silently (and sometimes not so silently) on the sidelines and seen.  So today I’m so thankful that my children and grandchildren have had you.  And that I have you.  A gift from our Father in whom his Son is gracefully reflected.  Happy Mother’s Day, honey.  I love you.