Mother's Day 2025

This Sunday today, is Mother's Day.  And believe it or not I'm thinking about my father. Let me backtrack in a bit to explain.  

 This Saturday the church that I have been attending in the Poconos was having a showing of the movie Conclave. I'm glad I got the chance to see it with other people as opposed to just seeing it by myself.  It was a movie that I think my mother would have enjoyed (and perhaps poked a little fun at too for all the "rituals"). My father, though not generally a "movie" guy, would have probably liked it too.

 This church that I attend in the Poconos is an Episcopalian one.  If you've read some of my blog posts, you know that I was raised as a Presbyterian. That was the denomination that my mother had chosen when she was a teenager. Prior to that she and her mother, and her mother's mother had been Methodist.  (For a long time it was the ONLY church in town...I believe it was wear my grandmother's high school graduation ceremony was held in the early 1900s.)  At the time that my mother was a teen the Presbyterian Church in town was THE place to be.  When her grandmother passed away she convinced her mother to join the Presbyterian Church. So that's where I was raised. However my father was Episcopalian in my late brother chose to go that route as well. 

 I have never been one to stick to convention when it comes to church. I don't necessarily care what denomination it is, I care about what the people believe in and how they show their beliefs. During the pandemic I started to attend the local Episcopalian service online at 8:00 a.m.   (This was also the church that my father attended for many years before my parents moved to the NJ Shore)  I would then attend "my" Presbyterian service at 10:15. It was tradition that I carried on even when restrictions were lifted and we were able to go to services in person. Hence, whenever I am in New Jersey and I can, I am Episcopalian at 8:00 and a Presbyterian at 10:15. I guess that makes me an Episcatarian or a Presbyopalian. Take your pick.

 When we came to the Poconos, I attended a Methodist Church very close to our house. It was a very nice church and I enjoyed the services very much but it just didn't feel like home for me. That's when I went and found an Episcopalian church that is about 6 miles from the house. (The only Presbyterian churches I could find were quite a bit farther away.)  The people were very warm and I felt very connected. So that is where I have been going since the fall.  (Or at least when I am in the Poconos...when I'm back in NJ for weekends, I'm still doing my 8:00 and 10:15.) 

 Attending this church reminds me of my father because he was the Episcopalian.  (Although I do have to say that my mother attended the local/seasonal Episcopalian church at the Jersey Shore frequently.) However today it's Mother's Day and I have been feeling the absence of my mother as well as of my two grandmothers. Strangely enough, the services for all three when they passed away was overseen by an Episcopalian priest. (Note:  note the same one.)  It was due to timing, availability and, in my mother's case, the fact that I really wanted this particular woman to oversee my mother's graveside service in North Jersey (because I have a close connection with her) and to have the Episcopalian priest at the Jersey shore who my mother and father were friends with oversee her memorial service there. The same priests oversaw my father's services.  

 But back to this morning's church service. Just after Eucharist was given, the priest said you may see me cross myself when I say... (And darn it I can't remember what it was that he said. Forgive me.) The priest told us that after his very first service as Episcopalian priest, the Senior Warden at his church went up to him and said “Father we are Episcopalians. When we say... We cross ourselves. “The priest went on to say that he had no idea why he had to do this, but from then on he always did it. 

 That reminded me so much of my father. I had to go up to the priest and at the end of the service and say how that had reminded me of my father on Mother's Day. Why? The priest who did both of my parents services at the New Jersey shore told me when my father died that he always lit the candles on the altar from right to left and then always made sure to put out the left candle before the right. The reason he did that was because when he first came to the church (and this was a church that was only open during the summer so they had several different people serving over the various weeks the Memorial Day to Labor Day), my father had commented to him after his first service that you always lit the left candle last and made sure that it was the first candle that went out. It was a reminder that no one is left behind.  My father and the warden that that the priest mentioned, were cut from the same cloth. You did things the old school way because that's what you did.  That is why I am thinking of my father on Mother's Day. 

However, with that said I am also thinking of my mother and my maternal grandmother. Why? Because my maternal grandmother also had certain sayings and things that had to be done. For example what has been passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me, was the saying that you never touch your principle. It was a strict rule. It is a rule that I have broken, and every time I take some money out of my savings account I think of my grandmother and her rule never to touch your principle. Another rule that she had was never sell your AT&T stock. Well that doesn't really exist anymore but its meaning still stands. (Don't sell any "solid" stock)  Which brings me back to my father.  He would say the same thing when he referred to a stock that was passed down in his family. You never sell your C. M. stock. NEVER!  And he was absolutely right. Now that I have inherited it, I see the benefit of quarterly dividends. They are not huge but they are very nice. Especially a Christmas time when the biggest dividend of the year comes. I have passed this "rule" down to my son. He knows that when he inherits the C.M. stock he is never to sell it. He knows it! He will live it!

This Mother's Day, I am wistful.  I miss my mother.  I miss my father.  I miss my grandmothers.  And I am grateful for the all memories and wisdom that they passed down to me.  (And hopefully I have passed down to my son.)

 
Happy Mother's Day! Whether you have children or not, if you nurture or have nurtured youth, you are mother.  Let all "mother's" keep up the good work!