Dear Mom, You Matter

Dear Mom,

It's Mother's Day again. I sometimes wonder if having everyone celebrate on the same day makes it somehow less unique or special for you? But then again, we're all ultimately celebrating for the same reason: you matter. Dad is great, and his day is coming, but today is about you.

They say now that even infants can register differing responses, based on what they expect when they see either mom or dad approaching to pick them up: dad means it's time to play; mom means comfort and safety are near. I'm starting to think we never really lose that.

Moms are more intuitive than dads. We guys struggle with being emotionally "in touch" anyhow - we certainly have the full range, but we don't get what they are. But you're perceptive. You knew when I lost the spelling bee in 5th grade that my feelings were hurt, and that I was intimidated to start junior high, and that I was crushed when my hamsters died, even though 11-year-olds should be tougher than that. You knew when it was reasonable to expect my sisters and I to get along, and when each of us needed our privacy and space.

Remember the time we were at the store, and I really wanted that Star Wars figure, and so did my cousin who was with us, and then he agreed to buy something else so I could have it? Just by giving a name to what he'd done, you taught me that day what "generous" was and that it was a good thing. I learned "sensitive" the same way. Who needs formal character education with a teacher like that?

Moms notice when you need your hair cut, and when it's time for new shoes or longer pants, and when it's time to see the dentist and register for summer sports. You kept a mental schedule flawlessly until there was just too much going on, and then you kept on us relentlessly so you could keep the written calendar accurate. Could Dad have pulled this off? Maybe - but the point is that thanks to you, he didn't have to. You made Dad better. Moms do that.

Our culture doesn't favor the elderly - we're into the newest, the freshest, the youngest. But you always had a healthy respect for heritage, and I don't mean old things like buildings or antiques, I mean people. We were always visiting the homes of your older relatives and later, regretably, their graves. We planted flowers at the cemetary every year. You still do. (Remember when you and I tracked down those 19th Century ancestors' graves in Minnesota? I loved that.) You taught me that the past was not to be cast aside, but to be valued. You advised us once to tape record all of Grandma's old stories because otherwise they'd be lost when she died. We didn't, and you were right.

Remember how you pulled me out of school to watch the 1980 Presidential Inauguration, because you thought it was important that I see it? Or how you insisted we pay attention when the Berlin Wall came down, because it was history in the making? You were more right than we could fathom then. And of course you knew what you were doing when you took us North Dakota-born kids on cross-country trips every other summer. Our horizons were and still are far broader than most of the kids we grew up with.

And I want to let you in on a secret: even when I began to pull away, as all boys do when they get to be teenagers, your influence and opinion still mattered. A lot. That's something I hope the moms (and dads) of the kids I minister to realize.

We live half a country apart now, but still the things I associate with the words family and home and compassion and, of course, mom, are tied up in what I experienced growing up as your son. Maybe in that sense, Mother's Day does mean the same thing to everyone.

Happy Mother's Day,

Mark