Happy Mother's Day

    

My angel mother, Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

While the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of “overtime”, when the angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

     And the Lord said, “Have you read the spec on this order?”

     She has to be completely washable, but not plastic.

     Have 180 movable parts…all replaceable.

     Have a lap that disappears when she stand up.

     Have a kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair.

     And have six pair of hands.

     The angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pairs of hands…not possible.

     “It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord.  “It’s the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have.”

     “That’s on the standard model?” asked the angel.

     The Lord nodded.  “One pair that see through closed doors when she asks, ‘What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows.  Another here in the back of her head that see what she shouldn’t, but when she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflect, ‘I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”

     “Lord,” said the angel, touching His sleeve gently, “Come to bed.  Tomorrow….”

     “I can’t,” said the Lord.  I’m so close to creating something so close to myself.  Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick…can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger…and can get a nine-year old to stand under a shower.”

     The angel circled the model of The Mother very slowly. “It’s too soft,” she sighed.

     “But tough,” said the Lord excitedly.  “You cannot imagine what this Mother can do or endure.”

     “Can it think?”

     “Not only think, but it can reason and compromise,” said the Creator.

     Finally, the angel bent over and ran her fingers across the cheek.  “There’s a leak,” she pronounced.  “I told you you were trying to put too much into this model.  You cannot ignore the stress factor.”

     The Lord moved in for a closer look and gently lifted the drop of moisture to His finger where it glistened and sparkled in the light.

     “It’s not a leak,” He said.  “It’s a tear.”

     “A tear?” asked the angel.  “What’s it for?”

     “It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment, compassion, pain, loneliness, and pride.”

     “You are a genius,” said the angel.

     The Lord looked somber.  “I didn’t put it there.”

Erma Bombeck