DEAR MOM,

It’s been a great many Mother’s Days that I’ve celebrated! It seems like only yesterday when we walked together along Stone Avenue in Brooklyn and bought a box of Halloween cupcakes from that bakery on Broadway! It was a cold day: you wore your fur coat, and looked so pretty.

And I remember those Sunday mornings, when you cooked those delicious Italian dinners for us, the smells of the sauce, permeating through the flat across my nose, waking me up for Mass.

I can still see myself, coming home from school, probably slamming the door behind me, excitedly screaming out: “MOM, I’M HOME!”

When as a child and having saved $10, a Godly sum for someone 11 or 12 in those days, traveling to Patchogue to the pharmacy, and spending $4 for you, $2 for Dad, and a buck each for the girls for Christmas presents! You always got the most. (Poor Dad!)

Those Friday noontime lunches, when we came home from school, and you had just washed the floors, the newspapers still on the floor, and the house always smelling so clean!

And how could I forget when you sang as you cleaned, songs I learned from you, and when I hear again, I think of you.

And all those Christmas Eves, when you returned from mid-night Mass and found us up and playing with our toys that Santa brought us, and you yelled: “What are you doing up?” Then let us play.

All those remembrances were really the Mother’s Days: days that belonged to me, they were because of you. Maybe Mother’s Day should be every day.

You know Mom, there are Moms out there that weren’t as lucky as you! You at least have all your children, alive and maybe not so well as we would like to be, but here, none-the-less. I know of Moms, that are just as loving as you were, who had the pain of losing a child, and I wonder why. Moms like TLW (The Little Woman), and some of my beautiful nieces, who once were babies in my arms, now mother’s, suffering from lose of a child or the pains of developmental and psychological problems of their children.

There are moms out there who suffered themselves, who as children felt the ugly sting of unloving parents, children who were abandoned, forgotten and even both physically and sexually abused! Yet, as mother’s, they loved and nurtured their children. Why, because they’re Mothers in the true sense.

And yes, there are mothers who are abandoned, and feel the loneliness of abandonment by their children! These are the mother’s I pray for.

So Ma, to you and to TLW, to my beautiful sisters, nieces and sisters-in-law: to all mothers everywhere, Happy Mother’s Day!

SOMETHING SPECIAL
Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back
to normal after you've had a baby..... somebody
doesn't know that once you're a mother,
'normal' is history.
* * *
Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by
instinct ... somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.
* * *
Somebody said being a mother is boring ....
somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.
Somebody said if you're a'good' mother,
your child will 'turn out good'....
somebody thinks a child comes with
directions and a guarantee.
* * *
Somebody said you don't need an education to be a
mother.... somebody never helped a fourth grader
with his math.
* * *
Somebody said you can't love the second child as
much as you love the first .... somebody doesn't
have two children.
* * *
Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother
is labor and delivery....
somebody never watched her 'baby' get on the bus
for the first day of kindergarten ...
or on a plane headed for military 'boot camp.'
* * *
Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her
child gets married....somebody doesn't know that
marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a
mother's heartstrings.
* * *
Somebody said a mother's job is done when
her last child leaves home....
somebody never had grandchildren.
* * *
Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so
you don't need to tell her....
somebody isn't a mother.