Happy Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day

For all those of you that are fortunate to still have your mother alive. Enjoy her and make her day and life special!  Otherwise, I hope that your Mother’s Day is made easier by remembering all that she meant to you.

My mother loved me very much and told me so every time she had the opportunity.  Growing up I made sure that I didn’t cause her any embarrassment or pain.  Some of the worst pain that I ever caused her was whenever I would hurt myself while playing, or when I insisted in playing sports like football in school.  Another sport she hated was collegiate wrestling because she didn’t know that there was a difference between school wrestling and Hulk Hogan type wrestling.  She never attended any of my school matches in four years of participation, because she was afraid I would get hurt.

She would regularly pick me up after football practice, and she used to say that even with the helmet on she could tell me apart from the other players by the hairy legs.  My mother would say thing about me that sometimes embarrassed me, but it was always in a loving well-meant way.

I remember one special injury at the age of 10, I was on my way to my mother’s place of employment for lunch (a restaurant).  On the way there a friend and I were cutting across a city park when we noticed a football game in progress.  We stopped to watch a couple of plays, and we were asked if we wanted to play.  The game was almost over but they were short some players.  On the very first play I was handed the football and I was supposed to run it through the line.  Somehow a player from the other team hit the ball I was carrying on my left side, and as I attempted to avoid a fumble, I was tackled chest high and went backwards landing on my left arm twisted behind me.  My elbow became dislocated, and I was coming in and out of consciousness. 

When an adult came to help, he rolled me over, and noticed that my elbow was out of socket.  After a very short assessment, he pulled my arm and twisted the elbow back in place.  Even at that age I was a tough little guy.  The man asked me if I wanted to be taken to the hospital.  I lied and told him my mother was nearby and she would take me.  I tried to be tough and not show any pain as I walked away.  I really felt sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to vomit.  Yet my biggest challenge was ahead of me.  We still had to stop at my mother’s place of work and have lunch.

As we walked the couple of blocks to the restaurant, with my friend’s help I took my left hand and tucked in my front left pants pocket.  The arm hurt just to let it dangle by my side.  When we walked into the restaurant my mother greeted us at the door.  One look at me, and she immediately asked what was wrong and I said “nothing.”  She said are you in some kind of trouble, again I answered “no.”  At that point she grabbed me by the left elbow and shook me, as she said,” tell me what you did.”  I dropped to the floor with pain, and almost passed out again.

When she realized how swollen my arm was, and that I was hurt, she immediately told her supervisor to call a taxi, and that she would be gone the rest of the day.  Fortunately the restaurant owner’s daughter was a nurse at the hospital, and was expecting us when we arrived.  The restaurant owner had called her daughter (the Nurse) in advance and asked that we be given every consideration, and that she personally would pay the hospital bill.

I eventually got over the pain, but my mother couldn’t apologize enough for grabbing my elbow the way she did.

For the rest of her life, every time we talked on the telephone or in person, she would always end the meeting or conversation by saying; “May God Bless You Always.”  Even though I spent many years traveling, and away from my mother, I never felt alone, until the first morning after she passed away.  I woke up knowing how much I loved her and that she would never again be just a phone call away.  I miss her terribly but I know that we will meet again!  The best is yet to come….