Enid Collins, My Mother
From Chapter 21, “Mother’s Day”
On Mother’s Day we always wore carnations to church. The first time that I remember doing this, my mother gave my sister, father, and me red carnations, but hers was white. When I questioned her about why, she told me, “One wears red if their mother is living and white if she died.”
I was confused and asked, “What about Nana? Isn’t she your mother?” She told me that Nana was her stepmother; her real mother had died when she was six months old. This was the first time I realized that not everyone has a mother and someday I, too, might lose mine. That Mother’s Day, I was especially glad to wear a red carnation.
When we are young, there is no one more important to us than our mothers, but I imagine to mothers the feeling never goes away. I remember seeing the movie Treasure Island when I was very small. There’s one scene where the pirates chase Jim Hawkins up the mast of a ship with a knife. Some years later, my mother told me that while watching the scene I’d crawled into her lap and asked, “Where is that boy’s muzzer?”
My mother was different from other mothers I knew growing up. She was rarely sweet, and she didn’t spoil my sister and me. When she was young, she did things for herself, and she made us do the same. If I wanted my football uniform to be washed, I had to do it. In my rebellion, I didn’t respond the way I think she would have liked; dirty practice stuff didn’t bother me. But I never resented her and always knew she loved me.
Enid, is the story of a child who grew up motherless, and went on to be a strong, yet loving, mother of her own children. May it be an encouragement to all who read it.
Jeep
Read the rest of the story or give Enid to the mothers in your life:
