Mother’s Day has always been a happy day and a sad day for me.
Mother’s Day is a happy day because I have been blessed with a loving, caring, kind and patient wife with whom I’ve been married for 51 years and who has been an amazing mother to our sons for 46 years. I am a very lucky man, indeed.
[You can see a book of Eric and Matthew’s early years at Days of Smiles and Laughter. Be sure to click on the angled arrows above the cover to see it full screen.]
Mother’s Day is also a sad day for me because my mother died of cancer at the age of 59. The thought still brings tears to my eyes. Some of the tears are, of course, for her years of struggle ending in her untimely loss. Others are because I was only 21 at the time and too young to have learned to love and appreciate all that she had done for me when I was growing up. I don’t think we fully understand and appreciate our parents until we’re older, and it makes me sad to think she passed away before I could really let her know that.
Mark Twain had a humorous way of describing that more mature “understanding” about his father:
When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn’t want to be seen with him in public.
When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.
I don’t have any pictures of my mother that I took. We didn’t own a camera on the farm and I didn’t get one until I was in graduate school. But at least I have a few digital copies of photos taken by others. I don’t know when the first photo below was taken. In the second one it looks like my brother Andy was still an infant so it might be from around 1938. The last picture is from my sister Pat’s wedding in 1964.
While I’m at it, I would like to add my appreciation for another mother on this day. Although my mother was here for only 21 years of my life, my mother-in-law was here for 38 years of my life. She accepted me even when I was a young, long-haired and bearded college boy. And, she always gave me a hug when I came to the door.
In the photos below, Elsie and Al are shown in 1980, and Grandma Elsie is shown with Matthew and Eric in 1986.
So, I would like to share my love and appreciation today for three important women, my wife Kathy, my mother Clara, and my mother-in-law Elsie Leuker.