Recently I told some friends a few things they may not have known about me before. Included on that list was "when I see springtime treasures such as emerging pink-tipped apple blossoms, I get an urge to kiss them."
I think such a whimsical response to the world coming alive again in the Spring is hereditary. While my father taught me to notice details, my mother showed me how to exclaim over them.
My first mom, whom I now call Mom-Eva, would stand out in a gusty wind with her arms outstretched and upraised in joyous welcome. She would see bright morning sunshine and burst into song. She would burrow her nose deep into a full-blown peony and breathe "Oh, the whole world smells wonderful!". Like her, I want to gather all the gorgeous, vibrant, expanding things into my embrace and shout a hallelujah to their Maker.
My Eva mom loved flowers. When I see the flowers of Spring, I think of her. In the springtime twenty-six years ago, she passed way from cancer. Whenever May 3 rolls around again, I think of her. Today is the second Sunday in May. Every Mother's Day, of course, I think of her.
This year on Mother's Day, as I ponder kissables in Spring, I think of two little stories - one for each of my two moms.
Mom-Eva was quite ill in the weeks before her death. Eventually she lost the strength even to walk outside and admire the things in nature that were coming alive. We daughters-turned-caregivers knew that her cancer was terminal, and we tried to keep her as comfortable as possible in her own home, while looking for ways to cheer her and ourselves in that bleak landscape of our lives. One day my sister brought Mom a bright little pansy plucked from her own garden. Mom lifted the flower to her lips and kissed its cheery face.
My second mom, whom I call Mom-Ruthie, went from being mother of two to a mom of eight and grandma to a handful of littles just like that, the day she married my dad. I thought she transitioned into her mother and grandmother roles admirably. I remember a sweet little tradition she began with the grandchildren in which she would "taste their cheeks" to determine what they'd had for a meal. She'd pretend to give a little nibble on their kissable cheeks, and murmur, "Hmmm, tastes like...some kind of meat...you must have had chicken for dinner. Oh, and I taste some jello over here. Red applesauce jello, right?" She'd taste-kiss the child's other cheek and discover some ice cream dessert there, setting the youngster to giggling over the ways of their wise and wonderful Grandma Schrock.
I guess I learned from both of my mothers to embrace the sweet little things in life.
Happy Mother's Day to the moms I have currently - Mom Schrock and Mom Martin. And to anyone who is a mom or has a mom (or wishes they still did)!
