The Living Word: My Mother’s Honour
By (the late) Leora Schmidt
I awoke late the morning that I write this, perhaps delayed by a vivid dream. My family of siblings was assembled at mother’s place. I was busily occupied with cleaning up the living room. We had reverted to acting like kids again. So blankets needed folding, pillows re-arranged, various items of extra clothing and shoes had been strewn around the room. The room wasn’t a showplace to begin with. There were numerous pots filled with plants—not ornamental plants—but the beginnings of a beautiful garden for summer. It was home, and it felt comfortable.
Mother had gone to the kitchen to prepare our favourite food. Oh the feeling! Being with mother provided such a sense of comfort, love, and acceptance ALWAYS!! I bask in that warm memory, sparked by a dream. And other memories insert themselves.
My mother was a stoic and said little in the way of rebuke. When I left home to attend school a couple hundred miles away as a teenager we didn’t have computers for e-mail or phones for texting or phoning. Long distance phone calls were expensive and seldom indulged in. The mail man carried our letters. When I was negligent in writing mother the usual weekly letter she accepted that and lapsed as well. When she finally wrote, the exact words of her wry humour have stayed with me, ”Since you seemed too busy to write, I thought maybe you were too busy to read.”
Mother has been gone for years—and I miss her. Remembering her gives me a special warmth in my heart—the realization of her constant, never-failing love for me. Sadly my memories are tempered by regrets. She treasured me, but I am sorry that I did not value her as I should, nor tangibly show enough appreciation or affection in my busy life away from her. The thought of that neglect yanks at my heart always when I think of her.
It was at my mother’s knee that I learned about God, learned to pray, listened to Bible stories and memorized Bible verses, and learned of the ten commandments by which I will be judged. It is one of those commandments that still challenges me, although I can now honour my mother only in memory. It’s the only commandment that pronounces a divine blessing: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12
Dear reader, if your mother is still living, treasure the woman who gave you life and nurtured you—the one whom you call mother. Therein lies a reward for her in your continual affection toward her. And your honouring and caring for her is a sacred privilege that bounces back to you with multiplied blessings.
