Remembering Mama

I have had the privilege of personally celebrating Mother's Day as a mother for 52 years. Yes, my oldest is older than most of you, my friends.   It is a joy to celebrate one's mother - and don't neglect to do it while you still have her.  Mine has been gone for almost 5 years and she was a treasure. She was 92 when she died after a living a beautiful life of love, sacrifice, and service to others. She always brought a ray of sunshine into the lives of those she was around.

I remember as a child growing up in Wilmington, NC that Mom regularly baked biscuits. These were so tender and soft. I really didn't appreciate them back then. They were simply Mom's biscuits. Often just before we ate lunch, she would give me a dish, warm and wrapped in a cloth towel, and say, "Run these down to Aunt Ella's for their lunch." Now Aunt Ella wasn't a family member. She and her husband lived at the other end of the block and were elderly.  You never knocked on the front door back then if your were "friend" or "family;" so I had to go down this narrow, overgrown, alley beside the house to get to the back door.

Aunt Ella met me at the back door with a smile after I had knocked and waited while she slowly made her way to the door. I said, "Mama sent me with these biscuits." And she would thank me. My legs would then take me rushing down the narrow alley and back home to our lunch and my biscuits.
Mama was kind to our neighbors - especially the elderly.

As she aged, Mama never ceased to be kind. I recall in her waning years when she was living in an assisted living facility, she helped those who couldn't recall the way back to their room to traverse the halls correctly. She helped them remember when it was time for a meal and guided them (even when she was using her own walker).  She would take out her mending kit (a cookie tin filled with scissors that had cut many miles of fabric and thread, needles, thread of a variety of colors, and an assortment of snaps, buttons, and eyelets) and repair a resident's sweater or blouse by hand. Her hand stitching was always a beauty to behold.

Yes, I remember Mama and hope that when I am in my waning years, my children will remember "Mama" as sweetly special as I remember my Mama.