Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, 2007. It has been a different Mother's day from all others. We drove to Salt Lake to listen to Travis, my son-in-law, give a talk on Mothers in church. Then we went to Travis' & Becky's house to eat lunch.
My sweet husband remembered me with a beautiful set of diamond earrings. All my children have remembered me with gifts and phone calls. Those gifts are so sweet, from each one. A sweet book on mothers with my favorite artist illustrating, a DVD of my grandchildren, freeze-dried strawberries, something I have been looking for in the stores for about 3 years (she found them and got me some), a Willow Tree angel with her arms crossed in the sign for I love you, and three phone calls. One from a daughter who will come down Memorial Day and celebrate her dad's birthday, one who lives in another state and one who is on his mission in Taiwan. So it has been a very happy day.
In the past, as my children were growing up, I used to dread Mother's day. It was during those times when the soppy speakers got up in church and told of these perfect, impossible-to-live-up-to descriptions of their Perfect Mother. She was usually the speaker's sweet mom, or some such, and I always felt terribly guilty for not being able to live up to the unreachable examples. I felt like a guilt-ridden failure.
I got so I wanted to skip Mother's day all together. I wanted to skip church as well. I didn't feel like I deserved the beautiful potted plant they were handing out. But there on the stand would be my sweet children singing with the Primary children, songs like "Mother I love You, Mother I do, Father in Heaven has sent me to you. . ." It was their sweet faces smiling at me as the youth brought the plants after church, that kept me coming to church on Mother's day, in spite of my guilt.
I don't know when it happened or what changed. I don't know if it was it a change in the content of the talks, or if I became more sure of myself, but I realized one year that I no longer dreaded Mother's day. In fact I have moved the emphasis away from me, and have concentrated on honoring my sweet mother and mother-in-law, and any other sweet person I love enough like a mother, to a point where I am surprised at gifts given to me. Oh Yes, it is Mother's day, and I get honored too.
My children are moving into adult-hood and parenthood. They are the ones who are the young mothers and fathers. They are the ones surrounded by sweet children who look up adoringly at their own mothers and want to honor them.
My grand daughter told me in a whisper one day while we were talking on the phone, what she had made for her mother in school. And so it begins again. The teachers teach their students to think of others. They give their sweet little hands and hearts a chance to make and give.
I remember wilted bouquets of flowers given to me from little grimy hands. Those bouquets of dandelions and sunflowers are some of the most beautiful flowers that have graced my dining room table.
Speaking of flowers, I received a fun rose today from Becky's Ward. It had Happy Mother's Day printed on one of the petals. How did they do that?
I do feel blessed, and am so GLAD that I have been given the opportunity to be a mother to six sweet children.