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Sunday, the youth group at church was selling “mums for mom,” so everyone was buying them and giving them to everyone else.  Sweetness. My own mother is 2000 miles away, so I gave a bouquet to the elegant Fasia instead, who has dubbed herself my “African Mother.”  She hugged me as usual, which I love because then I get to spend several hours afterwards smelling like her perfume.

Last year I gave a bouquet to my Neighbor Mother, Betsy.  I couldn’t this time around because she died in February.  She still gave me flowers, though: the pansies which she planted by her driveway last fall are still brightly in bloom.  Her irises were especially beautiful this year too, as were her daffodils and columbine.  Her Lenten roses began to bloom almost as soon as she left us, and one plant has blooms on it yet. 
 

I miss Betsy. 

She surprised us, at first, with her way of walking into our house without knocking.  Neighbors around here used to do that, I guess.  She taught us how to be neighbors, in a world that hardly has them anymore.  We mowed her lawn and she gave our daughter piano lessons in exchange.  Summers, we regularly trouped back and forth between her screened porch and our back patio, laden with potato salad and wine. 

During baseball season, she’d invite our son over to watch our team with her on cable (which we don’t have), and the two of them would share popcorn and shout themselves hoarse.

She didn’t want to live like a sick person.  She laughed raucously, kept up with a million friends, and continued to play with the symphony. 

She wanted to go to a place she remembered in the mountains one last time, so a group of us took her there.  She read us a letter from a friend who’d died of cancer, because the friend had the Words Betsy wanted.  She took off her wig and let us kiss her cute head, and we laughed. Raucously.  We didn’t know she’d only live a few weeks more. 

She died at home.  It worked out.  We took turns staying with her that whole last week, when the night nurse wasn’t there.  And I couldn’t have done that, made all those phone calls, spent all that time, if I’d had a job. 

All this past year, Betsy has been very worried that I didn’t have a job.  She even told me she’d find me one!  I was able hold her hand as she lay on her couch and finally tell her that seemed to be working out, too.

The million friends showed up at her funeral, where YES a few of us even danced.  All the viola players in town seemed to be booked with La bohème that day, but Rachel’s soaring violin was so beautiful it made us cry.  And at the first symphony concert, after Betsy had died, they honored her with an empty chair.

I know it’s a few days late (she’d tease me for that, too) but Happy Mother’s Day, Betsy!

Sometimes when you ask for poetry, you get poetry.   But a lot of people are very bad at following directions.  I find this a great relief, actually:  It’s good to know I’m not alone!

From Gina (before getting to know this woman, one ought to invest in a super-sized package of Depends..) (& that’s probably a joke that only a mother would understand…)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhcA4Ry65FU]

From my dearest Susie:

If you’ve read the Give a Mouse a Cookie series, you will think  this is familiar…

IF YOU GIVE A MOM A MUFFIN
If you give a Mom a muffin,
She’ll want a strong cup of coffee to go with it.
She’ll make herself some.
Her three year old will spill the coffee.
She’ll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she’ll find dirty socks.
She’ll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer, she’ll trip
over boots and
bump
into the box of Goodwill items.
Bumping into the Goodwill items will remind her she
has to get these
boxes
in the car and out of her basement.
When she puts the boxes in the car, she’ll find a bag
of groceries and
this
will remind her she has to cook dinner.
She will get out the chicken defrosting in the fridge.
She’ll look for her cookbook (101 Things To Do With
Chicken).
The cookbook will be sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the Netflix movie she’s meant to mail and
the preschool
bill,
which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook will be in her purse that is being
dumped out by her one
year
old.
She’ll smell something funny.
She’ll change the baby’s diaper.

As she finishes up, she’ll realize she brought the
hand sanitizer down
to
the kitchen.
While she is throwing away the diaper and searching
for the hand
sanitizer,
the phone will ring.
Her three year old will answer and hang up.
She’ll remember she wants to phone a friend not for
coffee but a very
strong drink.
Thinking of drinking will remind her that she was
going to have a
cup of coffee in order to stay awake for the rest of
the day.
And chances are…

If she finds her cup of coffee (which she has to
reheat by now),

Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

From Mindy, a woman always full of surprises:

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died.  Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him.  He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old.  The middle one is Eli.  Eli really loves chapstick.  LOVES IT.  He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it.  So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on.  My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box.  I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up.  Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli.  I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom.  And there was Eli.  He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . . rear end.  Eli looked right into my eyes and said “chapped.”  Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right–their little butts do look pretty chapped.

And, frankly, Jack didn’t seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether  it was  the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using your chapstick on the cat’s butt.

———————————————————
By my friend  Kurt Lash, who once let me sing back-up…
———————————————————

On a night so dark and dreary
I found myself with eyes so bleary
staring at the TV blankly
while the baby diapered stankily
opened crackered mouth and said to me

Quoth the baby, “Motherdear”

Startled from my dreamy revelries
Gaping at such infant devilry
Having hoped, but now knew sadly
baby’s first would not be “Daddy”
drooling mouth again spoke clear:

Quoth the baby, “Motherdear”

Demon boy! What of the sweat of father’s?
Who, although some say he rarely bothers
to change dark diapers, yet plays the baby videos
and often makes a bath time cameo
and always, somewhere, to his child is near?

Quoth the baby, “Motherdear”

All right then! If it must be so,
I’ll change thee then, and then ye’ll know
that I, like mother, am committed
to see thee changed when thee is wetted
There! Now it’s done! What do I hear?

Quoth the baby, “Motherdear”

“No respect,” I darkly muttered,
from the words that he had uttered,
uttered from his changing table
like words to Scarlet from Clark Gable
in this world, Dad’s in the rear

Quoth the baby, “Motherdear

I have a dear friend who lives too far away, but pops in and out of my life once or twice a year, usually by email.  She just sent me a lovely Billy Collins poem in honor of Mother’s Day.  It’s called “The Lanyard,” and is part of his latest collection, The Trouble with Poetry.  Here’s just part of it:

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
 
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

You can see the text of the whole poem here on NPR   (and listen to an NPR interview with Billy Collins as a bonus!)

Do you have any other Mother’s Day poems to share?  Please leave a comment with a link so we can share it/them together this weekend. 

And speaking of Billy Collins:  here’s an animated video-version of his delightful poem, Forgetfulness (click here)

Even better is this gorgeous, gorgeous video of Billy Collins poem, On Turning Ten (click here)

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Related posts:
The Baby: A Mother’s Day Poem 
Happy (snort!) Mother’s Day (A video.  A muffin.  A cat’s butt…)