Show Mom You Love Her

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When you're waiting for someone you love to come through major surgery time ... And the sound of the respirator drawing her breath in and out ran right through ...
Show Mom You Love Her Many years ago my mother underwent heart surgery. It was a tough operation. After they rolled her into the operating room, a sensible old doctor came out and told us to go home. He'd call us when she came out of surgery. My father insisted on staying at the hospital. But my sisters and I decided to listen to the doctor. When you're waiting for someone you love to come through major surgery time seems endless. With nothing to do but worry, my sisters and I started paging through old photo albums. And there, looking back to the 1957s and 1959s, were pictures of our parents. They looked great. My mother was beautiful and in terrific shape. We don't usually think of our parents as good-looking, because they are, after all, our moms and dads. But in page after page of the albums, we saw people of youth and zest and beauty. Hours later the phone rang. Mom was out of surgery and we could go to Intensive Care to visit with her for a few moments. When I saw her, she looked awful, really beaten up. And the sound of the respirator drawing her breath in and out ran right through me. As I stood by her bedside, my mind was drawn back to those earlier photographs. And I wondered: what had happened to that young and lovely woman?

* Was it the burden of having children? * Was it staying up all night with those

children through mealess, mumps fevers, chicken pox, and all the other assorted. ailments which plague youngsters?

* Was it the thousands of wash loads in an age before disposable diapers? * Was it waiting for us to come home from dates, when our curfew was midnight but excuses always brought us in after 1:00am?

* Was it the people we dated who sometimes turned out to be every bit as bad as our parents had predicted? * Was it the glassy eyes we averted or the alcohol on our breath (no matter how many mints we used to cover our drinking)?

*

Was it our silly acts of rebellion when we rejected all authority (including our parents) as outdated and stupid and out of touch?

* Was it the vacation they didn't take because there were too many bills to cover? * Was it all of those awful parent-teacher meetings, when teachers chided her children for unrealized "potential," but only Mom really believed that promise was there?

* Was it the times when her brothers and parents died, but there was so little time to grieve because we were children who needed to be raised?

* Was it going withoug so that we would have more?

* Was it the struggle to juggle the vocation of being a mother with the vocation of being a spouse? * Was it the pain of letting go when we grew up, the challenge of loving us enough to let us be free? Our parents give us so much, and it costs them. Our appreciation of our moms should not be limited to one day, Mother's Day. Our mothers are givers and, from time to time, we need to let them know that in a world sometimes devoid of heroes, they continue to give heroic witness. Questions for Reflection 1- What are some ways that you show / ed your appreciation for your mother for all she has done for you? 2- If you still suffer from “mother wounds” speak to God about you desire for healing and wholeness.

Fr. J