Earlier, Cranky Old Man drove by the churches and the restaurants and many families are doing just that, spending time with mom. Later today, Cranky Old Man will be with his family - his wife, the mother of his daughter and son. It is good, but not the same.
Cranky Old Man's mother has been gone for many years now. Still, he can picture her in his mind with her soft brown hair, and hear her gentle voice. He can see her busily at work in the garden she loved to work, so much like her own mother. He can remember the gentle call to wake up for school and the thousands of breakfasts and lunches, and dinners that she made throughout a lifetime. He can remember, as a young boy often in trouble, that her anger was fleeting, like a summer rain. She is gone and the boy, now grown, is left only with his thoughts, wishing that for a moment he could bring her back and say, "Sorry Mom, I love you."
But that is not going to happen. So, Cranky is left with an imaginary conversation, saying all the things to himself that he should have said to her while she was alive.
Funny, it is hard to say those things face to face. I don't know why, it just is. Cranky Old Man would like to think, that even if he didn't always say the right thing, he did the right thing. The right thing is showing Mom the love you have and doing it each and every day. And it is not yelling at Mom or taking her for granted. No, that isn't quite right. It is not the absence of negative things, but the doing of positive things that demonstrate love.
The very young boy remembers the gifts he got his mom on Mother's Day. There were the flowers he cut from her garden when he had no money. The first gift he bought when he did have money was an inexpensive clay angel with wings. The boy thought it represented him, but then he was no angel.
All in all, the boy would like to think that these and other acts of kindness were good enough to express what he never said.
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