Because Life Doesn’t Come With a Guidebook; It Comes With a Mom

“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall

 A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.”

Mother’s Day already? The years tick by at an alarming rate, the universe may or may not be expanding but I know for a fact that time is accelerating. My Mom passed away shortly after Mother’s Day 14 years ago. It seems a trick, as I remember her being here – what – like yesterday?

My mother was wiser than her young strong-willed daughter once thought she was. Much wiser. And as I grew in that wisdom I realized that she remained far wiser than me for all her years. As she approached 90 she determined how she wished to deal with her modest estate – without any counsel other than her own as far as I could tell. Who was I to disagree with a woman who had navigated her life and her family of six children through an early widowhood? Did she do it perfectly? Of course not, we are but human: prone to foibles, faults and failures. Nobody gets it all right. But she did her best and hindsight would indicate she did it well. Six kids, 8 Grands, 9 Great Grands.

So thanks Mom, I pray to be as lucid, focused and wise at the end of my life as you were. And if I am, I owe it in no small part to you.

Because life doesn’t come with a guidebook. It comes with a Mom.