By Dr. Jimmy Braswell
Chaplain, Home Hospice of Odessa
On Sunday we celebrate, as every year, our appreciation for Mothers, living and dead.
Every time I lead the memorial service for someone’s mother, I share the fact that we only get one. We may have other family members and even friends who have “been like” mothers to us and expressing thanks and love to them is not inappropriate on Mother’s Day.
However, there is something very special and touches our heart in celebrating our birth mothers. A mother and a child connect physically, emotionally, and spiritually as no other relationship. There is a tenderness, even among the most rugged and hardened when the name of mother is mentioned.
So, Sunday – we honor our mothers in dedicated times of worship, gifts, remembrance, flowers, and notes of appreciation and love. Thank you for sticking by us even in death – for if there is anyone who certainly looks down on us along with God, if anyone can possibly do so, it would be mothers.
That connection of mother and child continues throughout our lives and even if we are able to endure the loss of mother with a bit of hope; that shred of hope gives us a sense of belonging and purpose and teaches us to love our own journey in life – and that love of our own journey in the greatest gift a mother can give to her child.
