Dear Reader:

Once a mother… always a mother. Isn’t that perhaps the most misunderstood concept in preparing to be a ” mother?” Didn’t we all imagine that at some magical number… perhaps 18 or 21… that we were ” done” with the hard stuff and now we could sit back on our laurels and accept all the compliments on a job well done? WRONG!

Life just doesn’t work that way! I shared with Mollie her lament that her eldest child, Rutledge, was graduating from elementary school shortly… ( fifth grade in Berkeley County) is separated from elementary school as an introduction to middle school. They had received their pictorial history of elementary… both Mollie and I were happy but saddened too at the swiftness of time.

Yet… as fast as childhood is… adolescence arrives with newer, more difficult challenges … so that by the time your teenager is ready to graduate high school… parental graduation feelings run the gamut-sadness and relief intermingling!

But life doesn’t stop there either… getting through college, or starting a career, finding that special someone to share their lives… perhaps later grandchildren… tough times come and go and mothers keeping praying for their ” children” ‘s happiness, success, and most importantly… their capacity to help others along the way.

Motherhood never stops … until we do… and even then God finds a way to provide those God Winks to let us know our mothers are still with us … in spirit!

So until tomorrow… if every child we raised knows how deeply each was loved and will always be loved … how special and unique each is… we did our ” job” as mothers or any other ” titles” of personal guardianship. If we showed our children how to love and be loved… we taught them the essence of life!

Today is my favorite day – Winnie the Pooh