It's three years now since we lost Mom, and while Mother's Day prompts these memories, in truth thoughts of Mom are with me --- joyfully --- every day.
One never knows exactly what to say to a friend who has suffered the loss of a loved one, especially a mother, but from my own experience I can honestly affirm that God fills the world when she goes with thousands of precious reminders of her presence in song and place and word.
My mom loved Mother's Day, but then she had a child's glee for any holiday, some of which I am convinced she just made up. Holidays replete with her wonderful dinners, board games, long walks and laughter restored the little community of the home.
You never really had to say anything for Mom to know everything. She knew my mind and disposition as I climbed the front steps. There was no hiding your feelings --- happy or sad, worried or confident --- she knew and knew what to say to lift any burden you carried to her door.
Mom wasn't all talk either. She knew how to get things done, often in far more practical and direct ways than her son, though she would permit me to think that education she worked with me to obtain contributed more than it did.
I don't ever remember seeing my mother depressed or angry. Oh yes, there were those occasions, but I don't remember them. God apparently doesn't permit it. One suspects the Moms' Union in heaven under the stewardship of dear mother Mary saw to this happy bit of situational Alzheimer's.
I do remember Mom and Dad occasionally, well, sparring. Usually over something trivial like whether Dad really agreed to go to that church meeting with her or who forgot the directions for a car trip or who advised taking the last, wrong turn. Yet, the subtext of any such petty annoyance was unquestioned love.
Mom loved her children with perfect equality, understanding better than any court that equality seldom means the same since there is a uniqueness of spirit that needs constant nourishment. In doling out the good things in life, whether they be ice cream or pie, if there was not enough, you can bet that Mom would find reason just then to diet or to proclaim disinterest in even her favorite treat.
Someone once defined a sweater as that which keeps a daughter warm when Mom is cold. Well said. There were no daughters for our mom, but then, as my wife of 35 years touchingly recalls, "Mom always treated me as her special daughter."
Mom died in Holy Week; it was her time. Mom loved God completely, understood him simply, and by accepting his will without resistance she taught her children to do the same.
The English novelist Thackeray once said: "Mother is the name for God on the lips and in the hearts of little children." Older ones too, and we remember well.
Hug your mom today --- in person or in your heart. Trust me, she will know either way. Douglas W. Kmiec is chair and professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, Malibu, and the former Dean and St. Thomas More professor of law, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
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