On the very day my mother heard she had inoperable cancer, she opened the newspaper and found this quote: Every woman has the courage to stand the pain of only one day.

It became her message for the rest of her life. In the last days of her illness she passed on her strength and wisdom from the hospital bed.

LOVE--My father was always rubbing her feet. I asked her why.  “It keeps him from being helpless. It is the only part of me that doesn’t hurt. He loves to touch me, and I love it too.”

GRATITUDE--“I’m lucky.” she would say. “My husband and children love me. And, I’m dying first; I won’t have to go to my friends’ funerals.”  

REVERENCE--She woke up every morning throughout her illness and said, “Is this not the most beautiful day God ever made?”

My mother left her legacy in the way she lived her life and the way she died. May all be blessed to learn from her story and pass it on through the thousandth generation.

-Sharon Morton

© 2011 Sharon Morton, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Mother's Love

I am not a babe, child, or teen
and yet the sweet, sweet softness
and love of my mother
overwhelms me at times.
She is gone from this tired earth,
but never from my presence.
I often feel her around,
in the flutter of a butterfly
that lands on my arm;
tickling my tresses on a windless day;
standing beside me in the kitchen,
making her infamous breakfasts.
I know my mother is with You.
I am blessed and we are never alone.

-Karen Laven