I first discovered the poetry of Langston Hughes when I was in high school. I can still remember the corner in the library that held the poetry books. It was my first realization that all poetry did not have to rhyme and that all poetry was not about beauty.
I guess high school is a very good time to find poets that can express anxiety and pain that resonates with ones own, even if it is only of the adolescent genre. It is still very real.
In thinking about today’s blog post and the awareness of it being Mother’s Day, I thought of the verses in John’s gospel (19:26-27) where Jesus from the cross, reaches out to comfort his mother and his closest friend:
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
Sometimes the mothers who are there to care for us are not our birth mothers; sometimes they aren’t even women. Sometimes the mothers in our lives have not had a Hallmark greeting card type of existence. Life is not always a dozen roses and a box of Whitman’s chocolates.
Today I feel thankful for those mothers who mothered with such kindness and care, for all those who willingly stepped in to mother when one’s own mother could not, and especially for those mothers who kept on climbing even when the odds were against them, who never gave up on themselves or their children.
Here is a poem by Langston Hughes:
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair…
Love this poem and this reflection on Mothers Day!