Tonight I am grateful for having had a mother and being one. I decided to write this evening about Mother’s Day as most folks will actually read this blog tomorrow. I write it relatively late in the evening and so many of the folks who read it do so in the morning–except for my California friends who get to preview it this evening.
I often get a little sad as May approaches; I miss my mother more keenly in the spring and although it’s been nearly 18 years since her death and the sting of it has eased, I periodically still grieve her loss. And yet tonight I celebrate the many wonderful mothers I have known and know now. I have admire each of my sisters and sisters-in-law for their dedication to their children: for all the miles driven to athletic events, concerts, and bar mitzvahs, all the temperatures taken and medicines dispensed by “Dr. Mom,” and the laughter and tears, joys and heartaches I’ve watched them go through with the 14 wonderful children and one grandchild the six of us have helped to raise.
In honor of Mother’s Day, especially honoring my sisters and our Mother, I want to offer Mama’s Song, which I wrote for my mother back in 1978. I recorded it this evening, and while the quality of the recording is perhaps not the best, the sentiment of the song still shines through some 35 years after it was written and I first played it for her. About 10 years ago my daughter started singing it with me and now she plays and sings it for me. I wrote about Mama’s song and the last time I played it for my mother in this blog on day 304. The main thing to know about it on this Mother’s Day eve is that it the words were written with the deep love that my mother had for her mother, and the music was written and performed with the love I had for my mother.
I am grateful for the gift of music that allowed me to give my mother the gift of this song and for my daughter to give it back to me. May all mothers around the world be blessed. So be it!
Mama’s Song
As time chalks off another year and adds it to the pastLet us take a moment now to look at memories that last
At times we have spent together
At the joys both great and small
At the little incidents we’ve shared
From the time that I was small
Then too there are the troubles that we faced as one,not two
We would laugh to keep from crying as a mother and daughter often do
And now there is between us
A bond of love so fine
That no power on earth could change it
Over countless periods of time
Oh Mama,there are no words to express this feeling that I have for you
Well it’s very warm and bright and lovely but above all else it’s true.
Our memories may number many
But to me they’re all too few
I’ll always thank God in his kind ness
For giving me someone like you.
© M. T. Chamblee,1978 (Words by Dorothy Jones Chamblee, 1938)
