YOUR MOTHER WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU

Breakfast time is always spent listening to the CBC Radio. The first song I heard this Mother's Day weekend was "What are they doing in Heaven now?" It was lovely - I'll be looking on their website for the exact title so I can buy a copy. My mother passed away 30 years ago. During the sixties the topic of meditation was often talked about and I wondered aloud to my husband where the CEOs could find time for it since I worked a full time job and had our family to care for as well. The next morning I awakened early and heard my mother's voice say, "You could always get up at 5:00 o'clock you know." It was just her voice but no image and I wished I could see what she was doing in that other plane we call Heaven.

It was a disappointment to her when I married at age 26. When she was age 26 she had already birthed five children and would have three more. She tells me that I had promised to take care of her when she was old. Though I do not recall this promise, I'm sure I did because she was a wonderful mother and what does a child know of the future. My baby sister was born four years after me and Mother and I had good times together taking care of her, me thinking I was helping especially when I held one side of the bucket handle while she carried the water from the rain barrel to heat it on her coal-burning cookstove for laundry day. She would reach to her highest shelf to get the can of lye to make the laundry soap while warning me of the dangers of lye. The four older children walked off to school and she would let me have a few drops of syrup to paste the colored pictures I clipped from Eaton's catalog to finish my artwork. The rest of the catalog was taken to the outhouse.

Finally, a dreamscape has given me a glimpse of her in Heaven. I am ascending a wide staircase and see Mother on the landing above. She breaks from a large group and comes to meet me with a welcoming hug. She looks about 30 years old, fulsome, handsome and lovely. Forgotten are the years of no communication. My father tells me that she had read all the "Dear Mom and Dad letters," I regularly sent because he noticed when returning from his walk that the letter drawer was always disturbed. She had a good retirement and my brother and his wonderful wife, Anne, took her on a trip to the State of Washington to see her childhood home. Their two married daughters and four daughter-in-laws gave them 17 grandchildren to enjoy. Their firstborn daughter never married and went to Africa to do missionary and dental work. Canada had instituted the old age pension and after selling the farm our parents bought a home to Medicine Hat. The last two weeks before she moved into a senior home I came to Alberta to care for her when she could not be left alone. She was happy to meet our son and see how well he had done at University. Your mother will always love you. The moral of my story is, "Do your diligence, don't worry about the future, and take good care of the environment as we seek to tread gently and carefully upon our wonderful planet called Earth." There must be a poem for me to write for both Mother and Dad, perhaps tomorrow.