To Mothers Everywhere

To often we fail to say thank you
For being there, we seem to wait
Until it’s too late, but I want you
Know that:

~ I Remember ~

I remember when she held my hand
As we crossed the street,
I remember when it rained
How she put Wellingtons on my feet.
(I was so small they came up to my knees),

I remember when she called my umbrella a ‘Bumper Shoot’,
And decked me out in a shiny new rain suit.
I remember how she scrubbed our clothes on
The old wash board until her knuckles turned beet red,

And hung sheets out to dry, on a metal clothesline,
For my downy feather bed.
I remember the songs she sang to me,
"High diddle, diddle the cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon"
"Winken, Blinken, and Nod Sailed Out To Sea"

I remember stories she read just before
I went to bed:
"Mary, Mary quite contrary how does
Your garden grow?"
"Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
When along came a spider
Who sat down beside her and
Scared Miss Muffet away."

Not a day goes by that
I don’t think of my mother
In one way or another.

I see her in me,
When I smile, when I laugh,
And when I’m all alone;
She will be with me forever
And through eternity.

~*~

Janice Bumbalough Marler © 2005