Response Mother's Day Post

Received via email in response to Song Of The Day #038 (Mother's Day):


Thanks, Frank. You succeeded in helping me get the tears flowing. My mother, Coralee Holland, died May 16, 1984, three days after mother’s day. Her memory has haunted me all week, and Mother’s Day is especially hard for me. God took that memory from me when Janet and Frank married on May 16, 1998, or I could not have made it through the day.

Of course, all children think their mother was the best, but my Mama was truly one of a kind. She married at 17, and my oldest brother was born 11 months later. Besides the seven children that she gave birth to, she also raised four of my father’s nieces and nephews. She was a widow at age 54, and all she knew was the farm. She canned anything that didn’t get out of her way, and she worked shoulder to shoulder with my dad in the fields. The one thing that she absolutely did not like to do was clean house. I was always embarrassed that someone would come over and find the mess, so on Saturdays, I would clean all day. When Dad died, in order to pay off the doctors and hospitals, she had to clean other people’s houses at 50 cents an hour. She did pay the bills, finished raising my little sister, and bought two houses before she finally retired.

Mama always made do, and she was never ashamed of the faded cotton dress and the one pair of shoes that she had to wash the mud off of, and polish every Saturday night for Sunday church. She stood 4’11” (compared to my dad’s 6’6” frame), but what she lacked in height, she made it up with heart. She could put out a feast at the drop of the hat, and her table always welcomed anyone who wanted a meal.

I don’t think I will ever stop missing her. Be sure to let your Mom know just how important she is, because someday she will be gone. I never stopped telling my Mama how much I loved her, so my pain is not caused by guilt.

Again, thanks!

Joyce Holland Harmon