Mother's Day Wishes.

Wishing all sons and daughters peace on Mother's Day.

I cut three iris blossoms this afternoon, in honor of my mother, whose name was Agnes. She had a fondness for flowers; her yards always had roses, violets, and irises in well-tended beds. When my parents died, in 2006, just weeks apart, I often found solace in long walks in the rose garden of what had been my hometown for over twenty years. You can meet all sorts of people in a rose garden. In the Owen Rose Garden in Eugene, Oregon, they have a variety of hybrid roses as well as old fashioned roses. The older roses, perhaps because they have not been muddled with, are more fragrant than the hybrids.

Last night, in preparation for today, Mother’s Day, I watched the commemorative DVD’s the funeral home made for my parents. The two DVD’s overlap in imagery, and this seems fitting because my parents were married for over 60 years. At that point they overlapped to the extent that when my father died my mother said she felt like half a person. Some people are simply meant to be together forever, and my parents were like that. They were polar opposites in some ways, and yet they made their marriage work.

I have two female friends who are mothers. Rebekah lives in California, and is single because of divorce, and Irene lives in Australia, and is a recent widow. Each have children; both were women I once dated. Rebekah has had a bad year; her first grandchild, Lily, died at six months of age, due to being premature. Rebekah sent an email two days ago to let me know her mother had just passed away. Rebekah's Mother’s Day was spent planning her mother’s funeral. Irene rarely writes, and this is because she is always busy with work, her home stay guests, and her two daughters. I don’t know how Irene's Mother’s Day went; most likely she spent it with her parents. I spent the day alone; some days are better spent alone, especially when one’s mother is no longer living.

Daddy Day Care was on TV this afternoon. It is a film about making choices about what is important in life. Eddie Murphy and his two friends have dropped out of the corporate world and its financial rewards, and found that running a day care is a better investment of their time. Seeing the children they watch over blossom outweighs anything the corporate world has to offer. This morning, a similar message was conveyed by Charles Stanley, a minister I once listened to as I drove to work in the late 1980s and 1990s.  Stanley’s message this morning had to do with inheritance. Normally, when we think of inheritance we think of monetary rewards, but Stanley said the spiritual and emotional things we impart to our children may last a lifetime, unlike riches which are often squandered. These unseen things can also be passed down to our children's children.

This past week I mailed my daughter, who lives in a suburb of Paris, an early birthday package. Among the things I sent was a Little Orphan Annie book, which was published in 1925. She loved it. This is the sort of thing that will stay with her. The book may be thrown away, but the thought will continue. I tuned into who she is. This past Easter I was en route to home when I realized I had a marvelous opportunity to make a strong memory for my son. So I took a detour and went into a Trader Joe’s and bought him Easter dinner supplies, which included a nice round of ham without preservatives. No amount of gold or cash would communicate as well as these gestures, to say “I love you.”

My mother did not ever know me well, and my father knew me even less well. This sort of thing happens in a big family. They did the best they could. They could have done more, and the things they could have done had nothing to do with money. As a parent, I need to remind myself of this fact. I have to be at peace with the emotional shortcomings of my mother and father. I can’t blame anyone for who I am but me. Where I am at now, emotionally and financially are a result of a lot of big and little choices over a period of years. The year will soon be half over. Father’s Day will soon be here. My children often forget Father’s Day. They often do not send birthday cards. But today I am at peace with just being a father. And whatever issues I still have with their mother, are not relevant. For their sakes I have to let that go.

I don’t know that I like iris better than roses. I prefer the scent of certain lilies to roses. I don’t know why the lotus blossom is a symbol of peace to most of Asia. But I do understand peace, and what it means to be at peace with oneself. Some things you cannot change, and so you must resign yourself to changing what you can, and the thing that I need to change is me, and when I do get there the world will seem a much better place only because I will be seeing it with new eyes.