Grateful for Mothers

As Mother’s Day comes and goes, my mind wanders into the past, reflecting on my own mother – a lifelong teacher who died in 2024. Her impact on us, on her children and grandchildren, much of life as a single mother, was profound. She loved life, gave life her all, and taught us to do that.

People observe – even now, seeing pictures of her – that she had “laughing eyes.” She did. She was one of those people who had that little laugh in their voice. Life – every day  – was an amazement to her, an adventure from young to old, each dawn somehow wonderful, the aches to be ignored.

What made her happy was to explore, teach, serve, create, and love. For all her challenges, losing her father at four, physical and emotional scars of two divorces, she had a strong faith. Her faith was in our Lord and life’s essential goodness, what can flow to anyone who gives, wonders, creates, and loves.

In the most basic sense, she kept her four kids on track – with hard work, encouragement, and discipline. We had rules we were expected to abide by. We did not want to disappoint her.

For 40 years in public school, another 20 informally, she taught lower grades, art, and reading, beginning with us, expanding to thousands over decades, her every day active and thoughtful.

Not once did we not feel her strength, resolve, love manifest in her actions, first protective, then directing, then somehow willingly letting us all go, forcing us to fly. We were all different, and she pushed us in the directions of our strengths. Even now, I can feel her spirit, that enduring love.

Parenting is hard but wonderful, yet also unconditional. She did it all, worked, raised us, and was somehow always there. She was up early for breakfasts, making lunches, and down late with homework after supper. I was a reluctant reader, so – with her remedial reading expertise – she taught me to read. My sisters and brother, she taught music. Some nights, she would sit at an old upright piano and play.

Looking back, the biggest lessons she taught were not the verbal ones, being on time to school, work, and church, doing our best, helping others out of duty, but the ones she taught by actions.

Visiting those around town who were sick, older, and ailing, taking food, flowers, and spending hours talking with them, she taught us kindness. Bringing children home to play with us who were missing parents, those who had little, she taught us to be generous of spirit, place, toys, and time.

A lifelong watercolor artist, gifted observer of nature who painted thousands of pictures, she taught unlikely lessons: to believe that we are born to create, not just to express but to reflect what is in our heart, use what God gave us, that anyone can create, that beauty comes from seeing and creating.

Taught that drawing, painting, building, working with paper, cloth, wood, rocks, flowers, gardens, even words, amounted to using God’s gifts, that giving away our creations was His intent, we did that. Odd things flowed from her insight, lifetime confidence, love of doing, giving, and love of her.

In Luke, the Bible says, “Give, and it shall be given to you.” In “The Beatitudes,” we are told: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” In Acts, we are reminded: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Once, an old priest told me, “The only thing you can take with you is what you give away.” These were the sentiments by which our mother lived. Quietly, unnoticeably, she taught us.

Whether by accident or design, we never had much. In this way, she taught other lessons. You do not need much to be happy; happiness is within you, a product of how you approach what God delivers to you, good and bad, chores and miracles, each just an opportunity for gratitude.

As life brought her late love, then the sadness of losing her life’s love, two and a half decades of unexpected blooming, three years of caregiving that ended in a COVID-era loss, she never looked back, never seemed to begrudge a day. Yes, she wept, as we all do, but resilience was another gift.

What do we learn from the resilient, from those who suffer much yet are still active and grateful? What do we learn from those who never stop loving, endure the labors of Job, and love our Savior more? In the final three years of my mother’s life, she not only painted watercolors every day, extraordinary and bright, but she also wrote a book.

Somehow, in her late 80s, she managed to top off 11 earlier children’s books with a book about caregiving, the miracles that attend it. When I asked why, she laughed, then was serious. Such a book did not exist, she had looked. It would help others navigate the caregiving process, highs and lows, happiness and hazards, perspective, and even humor when going through this stage with someone you love. So, she wrote it from her three-year journal, entitled “Heavenly Music, Light, and Fragrance: One Man’s Journey to Heaven.”

Mothers are a marvel, mothering is a marvel, the love a mother has for her children, and that we have for our mothers, is a wonder of the world, one well remembered. For our mother, who lived to be a grandmother, painted, wrote, and taught to the end, there are no words, just her lessons,  “laughing eyes,” giving soul, forever with us. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, you are a wonder!

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor. BobbyforMaine.com