This is Joshua and Jeremy’s Mother’s Day present to their mother: the ancient hymn, Be Thou My Vision, still much-loved today, some 1,300 years after it was first sung; and here we have it sung in Japan–a country those old Irish monks never knew existed. They world has changed an awful lot, but this hymn remains the same.
You’re not here with us anymore, having moved to your mansion in our Father’s House; but there’s one thing I want to say to you that I never got around to saying while you were still present to hear it.
When I was a little boy, I was so proud of you for doing things that none of the other kids’ mothers, in our neighborhood, ever did–although they were as young as you were.
You rode a bike, helped teach me how to hit a softball, played chess and monopoly with kids and teenagers, played with us when we played volleyball on the street with Mrs. Thomas’ hedge for a net, and sometimes taught bunches of us kids how to play the games you played as a girl (“You may take three baby steps”–remember that one?). I could’ve burst my buttons, I thought it was so cool when you did all those things. I wish I’d thought to tell you so! But I’m afraid that was one of those things that children take for granted.
Nor do I forget how you watched U.N. meetings when they used to be on public TV, with me sitting with you on the sofa, and taught me all about the assorted world leaders and their countries, who they were and what they were trying to accomplish.
I think we both realized, after very many years, that if ever anybody was a chip off the old block, I was a chip off yours.
I would not be me if you had not been you.
P.S.–My wife wishes me to add that she and my mother were the best of friends: “And how many wives can say that about their mother-in-law?” It’s quite true, though. Nor will I ever forget my mother advising me, after she’d met Patty a few times, “Don’t you dare let that one get away!”
My mother, Claire L. Duigon, is no longer here for Mother’s Day.
But I am–and I’m a chip off the old block. My mother had a very strong personality, and she passed it on to me. Consequently, throughout our lives, there were many occasions on which the sparks would fly. That was only because we were so much alike.
Whatever else they did, my mother and father–supported by grandparents, aunts, and uncles–did one thing right, one thing that was truly valuable and necessary, for which I honor them and thank them to this day. My folks saw to it that their children knew God their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ the Son of God, their Savior.
As a young child I thought my mother was way cooler than all the other kids’ mothers. My ma played! Other mothers just sat around and glowered, but my ma played chess, Monopoly, volleyball, you name it; and taught me how to hit a baseball, and went on long bike rides with the rest of the family. She taught us neighborhood kids some of the games she used to play as a girl, back in what I thought was ancient times. But how little time it really was!
I always found it very hard, if not impossible, to impress her.
But on the last day of her life–and neither of us knew it was the last day, we were just talking on the phone–my mother said to me, “You can be proud of these books, Lee. I really have enjoyed them.”
That was several books ago. But she is never far from my mind as I write. Would she like this new one?
There’s no time to go into her teaching me to follow and understand current events, our sometimes heated political discussions, and so much more. I like to think I’m my own man, a unique individual. But no man is an island, entire of itself (John Donne)–
And I’m proud of my ma and her influence on me.