E.G. BellThe article that follows was published in the Forest Press eight years ago. It is not hard for me to believe that because we have cherished every minute we have lived here in the forest.
What is hard for me to believe and almost impossible to process is that the person for whom it was written is no longer around. I’m quite fortunate to have written it when she was still here to see it. I hope you enjoy this again. I hope you still have the opportunity to write your own article. Or letter. Or moment. Seize it.
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Theodore Hesburgh was a very accomplished Catholic priest. He was recognized for many remarkable accomplishments over his 90+ years. He taught at Notre Dame University. He became the 15th president of that institution. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. He partnered with Dr. Martin Luther King for civil rights. And all of this scratches only a tiny part of the surface of a remarkable life. He is also the source of a quote that I have always found really inspiring.
“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
I drive through Tionesta every chance I get. Oftentimes I am out as the school buses are dispensing little people with backpacks and eye gleam and handfuls of something new to share with mom or dad or grandma or grandpap. Things crafted to festoon refrigerators and sentiments with tokens of this time and this place. Things old discovered anew with wonder that refreshes wonder in older hearts. Children are the face of the future and links to the past for everyone who has a child or who has ever been one. You have given them a wonderful place to grow and live and dream. A wonderful thing for your children.
In addition to giving my children their mother, I have also done the most important thing. I might add that it has turned out to be a pretty great gift for my family. My wife adopted my family. My grandparents, George and Alberta, and my dad. They adopted her as well. If things had ever gone bad for us, I can say without any doubt or hesitation or exaggeration that I would have been without a wife OR a family because they would surely have disowned me. When my father died, he left his house not to me or either of his two daughters. He left his house to my wife. I had no problem with that. She deserved it far more than I did. Than any of us did. And my wife is a mom.
The greatest compliment a woman can be paid, in my opinion, is to call her a mom. I am not saying that all moms earn the prestige or honor or reverence that goes with the title. Some fall short. Some fail. Most, however, preserve and burnish the institution of motherhood. They are the first center of the world of a child. Warmth, protection, preparation for a future. Seeing little ones through crawl, toddle, walk, and fly. Getting them on the bus and off the bus. Keeping lives centered, facing and moving forward on the way to dreams, somehow without them ever losing sight of where they are raised and by whom.
In March of 2009 I started writing a letter. I have not put pen to paper. I have been crafting it in my mind all these years. It is kind of shameful that I have waited so long to commit it to paper. I have been writing it to a person who has taught me more about what a mom is than almost anyone else in my entire orbit. You might be thinking it is to my wife. She has by any measure of the word been a mom and I have given my children and my family (and myself) an unbelievable gift by choosing to make my journey with her. However, my letter is not to my wife. For these six years, I have been working on a letter to my wife’s mom.
My mom was a single mom. This is a difficult life for anyone and I have great respect for those moms who navigate that path successfully. My mother lacked that kind of compass, and I grew up in a storm. As special as my grandmother was, as hard as she tried, she was not that missing center. I did not have a compass either. Where does someone get a compass like that? Add snip, snail, puppy-dog tail, head of goat, stir for a few decades, and I finally have come to recognize what I still don’t even completely grasp. What ‘mom’ must truly mean. And I’m taking this opportunity to say thanks, publicly, to my mother-in-law, for being the only real mom I’ve ever known. For raising two more moms. And to assure her that for more than forty years, I have steadfastly done the most important thing a father can do for his children, at least as well as I was able. To wish her especially a happy Mother’s Day.
Remember your moms and moms of your moms and dads. Remember moms of your little ones. And fathers, remember the most important thing you can do for those little ones.
To all moms, happy Mother’s Day.
