The Southern Belles Guide to Life: Happy Mother's Day Mom

Margaret Elizabeth Watson Shoulders

This is a tribute to my Mom for Mothers day. I have not blogged about her since her death in December. It’s just been too painful for me. I’m still grieving for her now and will for a long time. I did however what to honor her and decided to write through my pain for her. So if at times I wander off the point or become too poignant please forgive me. You see my mother was my North Star (we all need one) and no matter what was going on in my sometimes hectic, crazy life my mother was always there shinning bright to show me the way. Sometimes I think especially as adults we take that for granted. Now I feel lost … I know in time I will find my way again.

My Mom as a little girl

I recall being very little maybe 3 or 4 and my mom being so delighted in everything I did. I had a very strong will as a small child and have no doubt that it took the patience of a saint to raise me I could not understand why I could not have what wanted when I wanted it! I can remember telling her when she spanked me that it didn’t hurt! And I would refuse to cry! Oh how my mother ever dealt with me I will never know!

I remember one time going to the dry goods store in town on a Saturday and my mother was getting a few things and I decided I needed a shiny new black purse. So when my mom gathered her packages up and left I grabbed my purse too and walked out. I was so happy and we hadn’t walked more than a block when I started chatting happily about my new purse. When my mother saw it she was so upset with me she took me back to the dry goods store to return it and tell them I was sorry for stealing it. Now this was a new word for me as I was only four years old. I didn’t know what stealing was? I just saw my mother get stuff there and at my young age had no concept of money. My mother gave me a lesson that day I won’t ever forget.

I’m sure though my teenage years I was a trial to her as well. To say we didn’t exactly get along during that time would be an understatement. Most teenage girls think their mother’s don’t know anything and I was no different. It wasn’t until after I got married and had my first child that I began to understand my mother. I depended on her wisdom and knowledge as I was woefully inadequate to the job.

My mom is the little girl on the far right, she is with her grandfather and cousins.

My mother loved children and had a lifetime of wisdom about them and I was grateful for that when my children came along. She always wanted her children and grandchildren around her. Indeed my mother could be surrounded my twenty kids and amid all this chaos have the patience of a saint with them! She used to amaze me I would have gone stark raving mad with all those kids, but not her. She thrived on it! After she died and we were looking for pictures of her for the service we had a very hard time finding any of just her (we found 2) in almost all of the pictures she had a child or a baby in her arms so we just used those for the slide show. There was a child at her service who knew my mother well and he made the statement “Do you think God took Miss Margie home so she could help with all those kids that died at Sandy Hook?” (My mother went to heaven that same morning at 4:30 am) I don’t know how many adults said that very same thing to me or something similar. I believe if the people at Sandy Hook knew that they had someone like my mother to look after their babies in Heaven they wouldn’t worry. Grieve yes, but worry no, because Heaven couldn’t exist in my mother’s world without children.

When my children were grown I got to spend more time with my mother and I took the time to talk and listen to her. I wanted to know her dreams, hopes, fears and to learn about her childhood. My mother had a very sad, hard life and there were times when you could see this. When she became sick in 2005 I knew my time was running out with her. We all take for granted that tomorrow will be there but I felt an urgency to be near her as much as possible. I was living in Georgia and she was in Kentucky at that time. She did move to Georgia and live with my youngest sister for years and I got too see her often. One time when she got out of the hospital I took her to Florida with my daughter Jessica. You see she had never seen the ocean and I wanted her to see that before she died. That was a wonderful trip for us. She was so excited and called everybody she new and told them how beautiful it was and that she didn’t know God had created anything that magnificent.

When she moved back to Kentucky I would travel up there to see her and she loved to go to the Amish village and buy fruit and vegetables. We went down there last summer and then took the ferry over the Ohio River to Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. She said I have never been on a ferry and I said you can scratch it off you bucket list now! She really enjoyed that trip we left at the crack of dawn and didn’t get back home until late that night.

I also met her and my sister in Nashville, Tennessee a few times. We went for her birthday and for July 4^th. She wanted to go to Printers Ally and that got checked off her bucket list as well and she even had happy birthday sang to her by the band that night. We had so many enjoyable trips!

Every time I got together with her I tried to store up my memories like tiny treasure to bring out when I was missing her. Now that she is gone from this earth I find it painful to pull those memories up… My heart feels like part of it is missing and it is… she took it with her… I know she left me part of hers as well and in time I will be able to look back and smile when I think of her instead of cry. The month of May will be difficult for all her children as its Mother’s day and then her birthday May 24^th.

"My Mother is the song in my soul…
She is the dance in my spirit…
She is the love in my heart…
And wherever I wander I will always carry her with me…
~ Glenda Sisk