Childhood Doesn't Wait
I was sitting on a bench
While in a nearby mall,
When I noticed a young mother
With two children who were small.
The youngest one was whining,
" Pick me up," I heard him beg
But the mother's face grew angry
As the child clung to her leg.
" Don't hang on me," she shouted
As she pushed his hands away,
I wish I'd had the courage
To go up to her and say....
" The time will come too quickly
When those little arms that tug,
Won't ask you to hold them
Or won't freely give a hug."
" The day will sneak up subtly
Just as it did with me,
When you can't recall the last time
That your child sat on your knee."
" Like those sacred, pre-dawn feedings
When we cherished time alone
Our babies grow and leave behind
those special times we've known."
" So when your child comes to you
With a book that you can share,
Or asks that you would tuck him in
and help him say his prayer...."
" When he comes to sit and chat
Or would like to take a walk,
Before you answer that you can't
'cause there's no time to talk"
" Remember what all parents learn
So many times too late,
That years go by too quickly
And that childhood doesn't wait."
" Take every opportunity,
If one should slip away
Reach hard to get it back again,
Don't wait another day."
I watched that mother walk away
Her child followed near,
I hope she'll pick them up
Before her chances disappear.
~ Kathie Phillips Davis
There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose as lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps."
~ Archibald Thompson
Mother's Day never passes that I don't feel that ache in my heart, missing my mother. In June it will be 9 years since she passed away. Time has eased the pain of our loss, as I knew it would. Time has also brought long forgotten memories to the surface. Memories of days long ago when my mother would gather me in her arms and lay down on the bed with me at nap time and read stories like Henny Penny and The Three Little Pigs until I fell asleep. We weren't blessed with wealth, but somehow she raised us in a way that I thought we lacked for nothing. My childhood friend and neighbor went to baton and dance lessons. We couldn't afford lessons like that for me, but we had a dog that I loved and my friend didn't have a pet. I was allowed to sit in the middle of my mother's flower beds and let my imagination run wild making mud pies and and dandelion soup, my friend wasn't allowed to get dirty.
I never thought of us not having as much as others because we always had enough and still a little more to help someone else out. When my life is through, if my children and grandchildren can look back on their memories of me and feel consumed with a love that is as sweet as the smell of honey suckle then I will have lived my life to emulate the greatest mother I have known, My Mother!
Happy Mother's Day!
May your day be blessed with warmth and love.
