A Mother's Day Tribute

My son just arrived a short while ago to take the sleeping baby out of my arms and back to his house. I can still feel the warmth from her sleeping body on my chest. I've been thinking about tomorrow being Mother's Day. I prefer to make it a quiet laid back day, no fuss, and most years the kids oblige me. We spent Friday afternoon with my Mum, Hannah and Andrew were mulching the garden and trimming the bushes. Libby ran out for stain to do the trellis. Mum and I sat with Isabella and chatted away the afternoon. A mother's day before the day.

This morning I made a list of foods I remember my Mum making, and that added to my musing.  Made me think about my Mum's life, and in fact all the women in my family tree, and the things I've learned about the lives they've led. They were strong women who overcame much. Some were abandoned by fathers and husbands. Some were widowed at an early age with children to raise. I can relate to them well. Some had large families, lost children to diseases we can now cure, or lost sons in wartime. Some are buried in graves only marked by a 4" square of stone with a number on it.  What will my children and grandchildren say about me? Will my life amount to more than some old photos left behind and a 4" square bit of stone?

Mum, Dad and me.

Alec and Mae (the aunt I wrote about in another post)  in the back, Kate, Morna (my Mum) and Jessie (my gran), mother of 15 children, over 28 years.

Agnes (my great granny, her husband left her with four small children , the youngest a baby, to find his fortune in America, only to return home to Scotland penniless). Lilias (my gran), Daniel... in the back Jean and Elsie Eadie my father's  aunts and uncles that raised him after his mother died.

My dad and his brother Jimmy, with their parents. Lilias and Frederick Shearer. Another brother Fred, isn't in the photo. My grandfather would die shortly after his fourth son, Alan was born, leaving her to raise the four boys alone. She then moved back to the small village where her mother ran the hotel and was surrounded by her family until her death five years later.

 Mum and Isabella on this past Friday.

and my own two strong women...daughters Libby and Hannah. They'll make wonderful mothers themselves one day!

and then this is the bunch that calls me mom...Nathan, David (father of Isabella) and Hannah, Andrew and Libby. It's a few years old, 2007, only Andrew has changed, grown taller, but it's my favorite photo of the bunch of them together.

Isabella, now three months old....my granddaughter...may I live my life in a way to Glorify God so that one day she'll be able to say that her granny was a strong woman relying on God in the good times and the bad, I want to be like her.

Happy Mother's Day to All.