Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
…Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?*
I don’t remember much about Mother’s Day when I was a little girl. Surely, there were handmade cards and bouquets of dandelions in tiny vases. Maybe we went out to eat on occasion? Dad was a preacher so I can imagine we did find a restaurant on that particular day of the year, in contrast to mom’s normal Sunday crock-pot roast or other “prepare in advance” meals. Mom and Dad loved buffets so I would guess we splurged for Ponderosa or Golden Corral on occasion.
Once I became a mom, Harold and I learned quickly that we didn’t enjoy the restaurant option with toddlers, waiting for a table on the busiest day of the year. So, Harold often grilled for us that day, leaving me to play with the kids. As they got older, they tried a couple of times to surprise me with an early breakfast, but I was so often the first one up, they had a hard time catching me in bed with their pancakes and bacon. When I started working at the church, Mother’s Day was one of my favorite Sunday afternoons. After working all morning, I could go home to whatever lunch Harold and the kids cooked while I read books, napped, and took a walk before getting ice cream in the afternoon.
One of my favorite Mother’s Day memories was in 2016, the year I graduated from seminary. We lived in East Tennessee and our kids were in Chicago and Milwaukee, while my parents lived in northeast Indiana. That year all six of them made the trip to our home in Johnson City (the only time they all got to visit our house in the Tree Streets.) What a great time we had eating together, playing games, and reading stories to an almost-2-year-old Sawyer.
The graduation was on Saturday and afterwards we made s’mores out back on our flagstone patio with firepit. My mom had her very first s’more that weekend, at age 78. On Sunday we made a quick visit to the seminary campus party while Sawyer napped, then we all went to the park to play. We also fit in a semi-professional photo shoot which included some great scenes of our people (and that house we loved so much).
Mother’s Day 2020 was different in so many ways. After a moratorium on hospital visits since March due to COVID, and extreme caution with Isla’s lowered immunity, we asked the kids if we could come for a visit that weekend. It was one of Isla’s treasured holidays at home that year, between long weeks of treatment in the hospital. (Isla was able to be home for her last birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND Mother’s Day). Liz and Ian had recently moved to Milwaukee to help with the kids, and we were all together for three days.
That May we still expected that an upcoming transplant would bring Isla back to full health. Like a rescued perennial that got new life in the backyard, or the flowers beginning to bloom around their house, we were believing that “hope springs eternal.” I tried to focus on each present moment, searing them into my memory for days like today. Even so, for every smile, every photo, every dance in the living room, my heart twinged a bit wondering “what if this is our last holiday together?”
That Saturday, we took the kids to a nearby park for their first kite-flying adventure. My own lack of experience was not a problem; Daddy, Uncle Ian, and Pops all took turns making sure the tail was positioned and the string was taut. It was cool, but gloriously sunny, and with just enough wind to keep the kite in the air. I loved watching both Sawyer and Isla run up and downhill, stare into the clouds, laugh at their daddy, and gasp when the kite caught in a tree.
Keeping a kite aloft is tenuous endeavor. Some things can be controlled, like noticing the wind’s direction and its pull on the string, attaching the kite’s string for stability, and letting the line out in perfect proportions. Other parts of the process are completely outside your control, like the unpredictability of the wind itself. So many contrasting emotions. The pure joy in a child’s eyes when the kite take flight. The tears and finality of the moment when a kite breaks off in the trees. The intense concentration when they learn when to hold on, and when to let go.
Not unlike the unpredictable winds of life itself, where I’ve found I have far less control than I once imagined.
…the answer is blowin’ in the wind…
* Songwriter: Bob Dylan; Blowin` In the Wind © Special Rider Music, Universal Tunes
**One precursor to our modern “Mother’s Day” came from the abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call to action that asked mothers to unite in promoting world peace. I think she would have liked Dylan’s protest lyrics.
Following God Anyway 