A Message To Mother

Dear Mother,

As year after year passes away,
And the brown of your hair is fast turning gray,
I pause, although duties before me now lay;
For mother, I'm thinking of you, dear, today.
And with these sweet memories I pass through a door
And back into childhood I wander once more--
Back to the days spent with father and you.

And in memory's picture I see the home place
Guarded and watched by your kind patient face
Tenderly feeding the "lambs of your fold"
Through Summer and sunshine, through Winter and cold,
Cooking and sewing and knitting with joy
For the needs of your thoughtless, rough girlie or boy.
Never thinking of self, never stopping to rest--
Just one thought in your heart, "I am doing my best."

And, Oh mother darling, I see you again
Bathing our foreheads and smoothing our pain
Where e'er childhood's sickness we happened to share,
Never a time but mother was there,
Watching beside us with spirit so mild,
Praying the Lord to watch over your child.

Often I think of those now vanished years,
E'er I had learned of life's sorrows and tears.
How you would plan for my welfare and need
And yet your advice I'd reluctantly heed.
How I would come with my "wherefores and whys,"
And often bring tears to your soft, tender eyes.
Yes, oft from your dear eyes the sad tears would start--
Could I have been breaking my dear mother's heart?

Oh Mother, those days are like yesterday now
And often I ponder and oft wonder how,
Now that I have awakened, how can I atone
For the tears and the heartaches I caused when at home.
Not until I was given experience and love
And the light of God's Spirit from heaven above,
Not until I had suffered pain, heartaches and tears,
Did I know what you suffered all those long years.

So on this bright morning I pray that God may
Give you many and happy returns of the day.
And as on your forehead time's silver threads fall,
May these years be the brightest and sweetest of all.
And may all of your children, afar or at home
Never let their devotion to other hearts roam.
They may love, they may wed, they may roam far away,
But their debt to their mother they never can pay.

If in the hereafter, the future to come,
We are all rewarded for what we have done
There in God's bright Kingdom, a mother alone,
Will surely be counted a Queen on a throne.
For there is no title in this world or another
So grand, so great, so his, as that of--     MOTHER.

                                        Affectionately,

                                        Mary Gould Canova