Mother's Day: A time to say "thank you"

That was a very beautiful and heartfelt statement. Thank you Brian Lilly.

Thanks, Mom. I didn’t grow up in very emotionally demonstrative home. My Mom wasn’t particularly affectionate, thus neither are her offspring. Although I never remember my mother hugging me and telling me she loved me, I never remember doubting it either. Everything my parents did, they did for us. Eight kids and five foster kids over the years, she worked her fingers to the bone for us. As for my Dad, it’s been said that the best gift a Father can give his children is to love their Mother. My Father definitely gave us that gift! Although there wasn’t a whole lot of physical affection between my parents and us children, there was occasionally between my Mother and Father. Married 65 years when my Father died, and never an unkind word between them. I remember my Father as being bull-headed, stubborn and quick-tempered when I very young, but he continued to mellow as we both grew older. In fact, in his later years he grew into a very wise and humble man who was fond of saying things like, “The closer you are to God, the easier it is to accept whatever comes your way”, and “The most powerful force in the Universe is Love” My Mother died in 2010 at the age of 92. Everything good in me comes from my parents. The bad stuff, I figured that out all by myself. Thank you, Mom, for everything. I’ll be seeing you again soon.

Oops. That didn’t work. Glenn Craig – I had no words so I tried to send a heart and it just came out looking like an obscenity.

Certain types of life experience can give us a wonderful sense of the absolutely uncontrollable absurd beyond which nothing has meaning, nothing matters and all is hillarity.

Some also call it madness.

Beautiful hymn.

There. Too many words o’er a broken heart.

Glenn Craig – <3

Peter Babich – Thank you.

I am glad to hear you don’t need an exorcism. You had me worried, thinking me Satan. Love is a gift, as is becoming blameless, which sets us free to love without conditions.

Joan. I’m sorry I was joking. I just threw it out there. I’m not the majority. I saw my priest today and he said I don’t need an exorcism. Since the sermon was on Gods Love, I asked him for a transcript and he handed it to me. Soon as I can I’ll figure it out. What I got the most was love stems from self-giving,forgiving and thanksgiving. Happy Mother’s Day

Brian, God bless you. I just happened by this video while sitting with my mom. I can’t describe on one page the blessings I have received through this woman. I want to thank Mary mother of God mostly

The link I am posting is an Armenian hymn from the third century called “Mother Where Are You” ..it depicts Christ calling out to his mother from the cross. I dreamed of my mother last night..and I like Joan have a tale of familial dysfunction..but I play this hymn every Mother’s Day in her memory and I weep….“I love you” should never be a death bed confession.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOp83g-ORjg

Thank-You Mom!
You were my EVERYTHING…
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Thank you isn’t really apprpriate for my mother. She would have aborted me if she could have. She wanted another boy and when she brought me home from hospital, she put me in the crib, shut the door, cranked up the radio, cracked open the Black Velvet, lit a MacDonalds, and hoped I’d die.

It was my father who did all the early-days child care before work, at noon, and after work. His care was the only reason I survived. Not that he was any saint. He didn’t want the law around is all.

Growing up, my mother suffered bulimia by proxy. No breakfast, lunch dependent on whether I could wake her, and double portions red meat every dinner. Not allowed to feed myself. I weighed 88 pounds when I left my parents’ home at 18. My parents weren’t poor. We lived in Etobicoke.

Shortly before my mother died, she said “I love your brother but sometimes I don’t like him very much”. He’d broken the glasses on her face, bruised her cheekbones and given her a bloody fat lip trying to extort more money. Then she added, “But you, I like”. Not “you, I love”. She wasn’t going to lie. Even so, it was a huge compliment from my mom to say she liked me.

But despite my mother didn’t ever love me, despite she resented me throughout my childhood and went out of her way to hurt me, I always loved her. I felt sorry for her for having to bear me into this world against her will. I cared for her throughout my childhood and right up until she died. In grade school, I stayed up until the wee hours to put her to bed when she passed out from the booze. As an adult, I found a way to accept her choice to drink herself to death when all my Alanon efforts failed.

Love for a parent does not depend on how that parent treated the child. Love is visceral, pathetic, mysterious. I have no regrets at all about how I honoured my mother all the days of her life. Her life was a broken one; she had no control. So, while a thank you is out, I can still say “I love you”.

On Mother’s Day to my mom, gone to her Maker, “I love you”.

Great Commentary!