Mother’s Day: “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle…”
I am back home from my cold, rainy, muddy stay in the North Woods of Michigan. It was wonderful to be with family and to do some very simple and good things.
Today I thought about Mothers.
I awoke from a dream repeating a sweet sentence that my own dear and beloved Mother wrote me on a card over two decades ago. This, shortly after my Sally (another simply wonderful Mother to my children) and I took her and my Father for a sail on Lake Michigan.
She wrote to me, “Let’s go again to the blue water”. Her sentence expressed our shared love of Lake Michigan. As I prepare for another of our over 40 sailing seasons on “our lake”, her words will echo in my mind for this and all of my remaining days.
I have decided that it is there I will go when my “life on the hard” is over.
I will tell you honestly that all of the mothers in my life have been wondrous in their love and dedication to their children.
My Mother also used to say something else that has stuck with me ever since I first heard it as a preteen. She repeated a favorite quote (author unknown) to me on several occasions: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world”.
I suspect this is one of those “self-evident truths” that I was taught in college does not exist. But, you can be certain that I’m with Mom on this one.
I have the greatest love and respect for the marvelous Mothers in my life.
V. Tom Mawhinney
Cultural Survival Skills 