Happy Mother's Day to my Mother!

To pass the time during these 'stay-at-home' days, I've been reading through all my old journals that include lots of letters to and from my mother.  This is a project that I've wanted to do for awhile but have put off.  It is good to remember and reflect on the past.

Reading letters from my mother has made me really miss her. In the first years after her death, I would often make a mental note of something that I wanted to tell her. After 11 years, those times are few but reading her letters has filled my heart with longing to share my life with her again.  One of the songs from Phantom of the Opera is called, "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" and is sung by Christine at her father's graveside.  A heartbreaking line of the song says, "Wishing I could hear your voice again, knowing that I never will."  Thankfully, I know that I will hear her voice again and that I will be able to share my thoughts and feelings with her once again.  This is truly one of the most beautiful teachings of our church.  Families are forever.

For Mother's Day, I reflected on how my mother had influenced my life.  There are a million ways but the one I want to share this year is summed up in this little verse.  

Here we are when I was only 2 years old and we lived in Providence, Rhode Island.

We have a clipping from the Providence paper that has my photo because I was the youngest library card holder at the local library!  This was about 1 week before my 2nd birthday.  Moma said that I was very independent and loved to pick out my own books.

My parents didn't have a lot of money, but they bought a set of 15 volumes of Childcraft Books.  There were books with poems, books with fiction stories, parenting books, nature books...a whole treasure trove of wonders. One of my favorites was Volume 6 - Great Men and Famous Deeds. These books didn't just look good sitting on a book shelf.  My mother read to me from them and later I read them myself.

I can still quote the beginning of my favorite story.  

"Clara Barton was getting over the mumps, and this was her first day downstairs....."

When we lived in Sicily, I went through a stage where I didn't eat much.  Moma would read to me every morning while I ate my breakfast so that I would eat more. Often I picked a story from Volume 6 and learned of great men and women like  Christopher Columbus, George Washington Carver, Alexander Graham Bell, Louise Alcott, Jane Adams and, yes, Clara Barton.  There was even a section of stories from the Bible and one on myths and legends.  I was inspired by the stories.

I had completely forgotten the hero of the story just before Clara Barton.  Yes that is Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveler.  The last line of the story of General Lee says, "So noble and dignified was General Lee's character that he was honored and admired by North and South alike".  And no these books weren't published in the south.  They were published in Chicago.  Isn't it wonderful to read that people on both sides admired and honored him? I am sure that there is a lesson for our day in this Childcraft book published in 1954.

Happy Mother's Day in heaven Moma and Grandmas and Aunt Mary!