What Mother Means to Me

What can I say about my mother?

The one who carried and bore me,

Who feed, bathed, and clothed me,

Who is the reason today I see.

So many ways she gave selflessly,

To provide my every need,

She, in every way,

Was beyond common human greed.

BELIEVERS my family of origin weren’t. We were just a normal Western Australian family growing up in the dry Pilbara heat in comparative isolation. My mother exemplifies sacrifice for this reason, among others. Without much support, she did the very best she could with what she had, which wasn’t much. She gave more than anyone without unconditional love ever could.

It is in lonely reflection that I watch those Super-8 silent movies; tears come to roll down the cheeks quite majestically. These tears prove the point of God – that love transcends superficial happiness. Love, real love, is often borne upon a moment of serene, nostalgic sadness for memories that cannot ever be re-lived in the flesh. Memories of childhood can be palpable. How cruel is life that we cannot even for a few moments return to that child state to enjoy our mother’s embrace or play with our fun-loving fathers?

This sadness, like all sadness, is special, unique in its presentation, and to be haled as imperative in the realm of the eternal.

As I fast forward three decades I note that the history pages record a God-appointed opportunity for a 36-year-old to get to know his mother and father in an unprecedented way – through my marriage breakdown – and for these parents to grow through their pain for their son’s pain. During a six month period there were many opportunities harnessed for the deeper truths to be communicated, and therefore love grew.

When my world was turned upside down, my mother was there to pick me up, and to dignify me in my recovery – for no grown son needs a nursemaid. She did not fight my battles for me, but she gently validated how I felt. She didn’t do my work, but she would help in little and significant ways. She listened as I would over and over and over again rehash my hurts in my grief – the same tired stories. She and Dad were a unified force for God in the project called Love for the genuine and slowly blossoming prosperity of my life that was becoming.

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What does my Mother mean to me? Everything, and, at the same time, love for one’s mother is incomprehensible and indescribable.

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Mothers sacrifice their needs in early life, they serve in the middle years, and then they dignify their offspring in later years. Love is expressed in various ways, but it is always consistent in that it gives.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.