Moms are special…

My Mom was special - I bet your Mom is (or was) special, too.  This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day.  In mind; in memory; or in person; be sure to make it a special day for your Mom.  Don’t just send flowers and a card.  Make her the center of your attention if only for one day. 

My wife is a special Mom.  She continues to lovingly mother our grown boys and our grandchildren even while their father worries, “How do I get all of these kids off the payroll?”  But I digress.  She is the matriarch of our entire family. 

Moms have that special sense of humor, too:  

A wife invited some people to dinner.  At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”  “I wouldn’t know what to say”, the girl replied.  “Just say what you hear Mommy say”, the wife answered.  The daughter bowed her head and said, “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”  

Unknown Sage                                

However, like anyone a Mom’s sense of humor has limits.  Back to our Unknown Sage: 

Never tell your Mom her diet's not working. 

Our Moms are special teachers.  Remember those life-long lessons you learned from your Mother?  This final thought from our favorite, Unknown Sage: 

What my Mother taught me: 

My Mother taught me logic;

“Because I said so, that's why.”

My Mother taught me irony;

“Keep laughing and I'll give you something to cry about.”

My Mother taught me about the science of osmosis:

“Shut your mouth and eat your supper!"  

Mothers offer us encouragement in just the right way, even if it might hurt our feelings: 

My mother always encouraged me to be myself.  “Unless you’re going to be boring on that day, in which case do us all a favor and be someone else.” 

Joan Rivers

Most importantly, Moms have a special and immeasurable reservoir of power, true?  My Mom did.  She was stricken with cancer when I was 6 years old.  In fact, I don‘t remember a time when she was not ill from either the disease or the treatments.  Her treatments became continuous during the last 15 years of her life: 

I watched my Mom’s great power, which she needed in order to deal with a new cancer treatment in the late 1960’s that was so unimaginably harsh – the administration of this treatment was solely based on the primitive science of trial and error.  The doctors’ routine consisted of observing how much of a dose could she tolerate without dying from the treatment. 

It was experimental back then; offered only as a last resort for terminally ill cancer patients. It wasn’t a cancer cure; just a radical option to extend one’s life another month or two; perhaps a little longer.  It was only her staying power (and that of many other patients like her) before she finally succumbed in 1974, that helped pave the way to the development of the commonly used, life-saving cancer treatment we all know today as chemotherapy. 

How many special Moms have died fighting terrible diseases (and brutal treatments) so the rest of mankind can benefit from the exaggerated term, “modern medicine”? 

Sunday is Mother’s Day - make it special for your Mom if she’s living; make it special for you through your thoughts and memories of your Mom if she’s not.  Odds are she’ll be smiling down from heaven. 

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.