Mother’s Day 2018

Yesterday was a good Mother’s Day. I got to talk with all three of my kids, which is every mother’s wish on Mother’s Day; and my husband Gene and I had a nice lunch and good visit at home with a few friends and family.

The day began on an interesting note. I usually rise around 4 or 5 a.m. I think Mother did this, too, frequently because she had a headache. She would get up very early and make herself a cup of coffee. I do the same thing, often for the same reason.

Yesterday, I slept in. I didn’t rise until 6:30 a.m. – late for me. While my K-cup coffee was “brewing,” I picked up a book that Gene wrote for his family in 1999 about his family history. Within a few seconds, I fanned through the pages and stopped only by chance on page 24, the last page in a chapter he wrote about his mother Annie. The only thing on this page is a poem, which he said he found decades ago stuck between the pages of his mother’s Bible after she passed away. Although this poem might seem to set a sad and lonely mood, it did the opposite for me. I felt my mother talking to me through Gene’s mother, and it made me smile.

WHEN I AM OLD

Lord, keep me sweet as I grow old,
And things in life seem hard to bear,
When I am sad and all alone
And people do not seem to care.

Oh, keep me sweet when time has caused
This body, which is now so strong,
To droop beneath its load of years,
And suffering and pain has come.

Help me to train my heart each day,
That it will only sweetness hold;
And as the days and years roll on,
May I grow sweet as I grow old.

Oh, keep me sweet and let me look
Beyond the frets that life must hold,
To see the glad eternal joys;
Yes, keep me sweet in growing old.
                                               Louise McBride