Mother's Day

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I was moved. On a car ride yesterday morning, I caught a glimpse of a stolen moment for someone I don't even know. A thin young woman sat on the ground indian style in front of a grave outside a little white church in my small country town, her head in her hands. She wore a flowered blue bandanna around her hair and a faded blue t-shirt and military green shorts. Before her a gray concrete headstone splayed with magenta flowers loomed. The door to her little white truck hung ajar, indicating she'd something more pressing on her mind other than the detail of closing latches. She pulled me from my own happy mommy thoughts to a distant place of grief for all those who have lost their mothers to death and no longer had the luxury of spending Mother's Day with them.

"If not by the grace of God, that could have been me," fleeted across my thoughts recounting the sight of my own mother after the necessary horror and violence of brain surgery a few short months ago. I'm so grateful to have the peace now that my Mom has nearly fully recovered (she tells me she has a few leftover side effects), and everyone here spoke on the phone with her. We couldn't get down to Florida just now after so much travel of late.

I wondered if the unnamed young lady by the grave suffered a recent loss, regret or remorse of some kind. I'll never know, but she spurred me on to consider that every moment with family counts. No time to lose or grudges to hold- just the present.

The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. ~Author Unknown