Dear Reader:

I talked the other day about taking time to pause and thank all the mothers who helped “anchor” my life when times were tough and taught me that unconditional love was a mother’s heaviest anchor for her children.

(* Did you notice the same chair as in the photo yesterday with me holding the baby doll…it must have picture day for Baby Becky or something….mom looks like I probably kept her up all night.)

On the radio the other day I heard an old sixties song that I hadn’t heard in a long time….the kind that makes you start snapping your fingers to the tune. It was Sam and Dave’s “I Thank You” hit from decades past. As I listened to the lyrics….I thought the song could be (just as well ) written about mothers, as  special girlfriends.

“You didn’t have to love me like you did, like you did, like you did… and I thank you.” (It goes on to say that ‘you didn’t have to hug me, or squeeze me or hold me….but you did.“) That is the beauty of mothers….they don’t have to do any of all the necessities of child-raising, foremost love, “but they do.”

I remember asking mother one day, as an adult, how in the world she ever even considered trying to raise three children (alone) six and under with one hand (loss to bone cancer) and no husband. (Daddy died at age 31.) Mother looked at me quietly and said that we were the three reasons for her to go on….for her to live.

The number of sacrifices she made would be too numerous to count….but her greatest gift was simply being there for us. Her role model for motherhood was beyond compare….whenever I got discouraged throughout life I told myself to “stop the pity party” and “get with the program“….if mother could do what she did….I could certainly weather my fair share of ups and downs.

If you look at the second photo carefully you will notice that mother’s hand was already missing….daddy has died….but mother is smiling….life went on. The anchor of unconditional love remained strong enough to weather all the future storms that would come our way.

Mother would be the first to admit, however, that she didn’t raise us alone….grandparents, aunts uncles, cousins, and close friends encircled our family constantly. Growing up with cousins, more like siblings, I learned how important it is for extended family to become one large family….an important lesson. None of us can do it alone.

Poppy, Dee-Dee, and all my Dingle “Sistahs”/family I hope you know how much your unconditional love and support was my anchor later in life with my three children. They, too, grew up in a large family where cousins were more like extended siblings. You, too, “didn’t have to love me like you did, like you did, like you did…and I thank you” (from the bottom of my heart.\

So until tomorrow…I would like to end with Erma Bombeck’s thought-provoking  little anecdote to mothers everywhere. Happy Mother’s Day!