A Message From Mom

It will be ten years this June since my mother passed away. I miss her gentle kindness and love; she was always the one with a ready ear and compassionate heart. There are still many of her things in the house and I was cleaning out a drawer the other day when I found something she had cut out and saved.

It was a poem by Doone F. Lemmy (searched and couldn't find anything on him) and was published in the Washington Star. The Star was a Washington D.C. daily afternoon paper from 1852 to 1981 when it went out of business. There is no title on this poem, so I'm just calling it a message from Mom:

While working at my desk today
Striving to put my thoughts in rhyme
I heard my little children say
What I oft said in olden time,
Before my hair had turned to gray
Before times wrinkles creased my brow,
"Please, mother, do not keep us now,
But let us go and play!"

Their plaintive voices came to me
From the adjoining chamber, where
Both wife and children I could see
When seated in my easy chair,
She kissed them tenderly, and they
With joyous shouts went to their game,
They could not hear my heart exclaim,
"Oh, would then we could play!"

O God, I pray that thou wilt leave
Their mother here until my boys
Can comprehend that they but grieve
Themselves when they leave her for toys!
Oh, they'll remember when they pray
For their dear mother, when she's dead,
How often they to her have said,
"Please let us go and play!"

Aye, in this life from day to day
Unknowingly we oft disdain
Our blessings, and but wish for pain
When we scorn sacrifice for play.

What would you sacrifice for one more day with your mother?

Idle speculation on the impossible, but a catalyst for fond memories.

Have a wonderful Saturday my friends and if you're still lucky enough to have your mother with you, give her a call just to let her know how much you love her.