God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. …

With this upcoming Sunday being Mother’s Day, I’ve received a lot of requests to rerun something that I wrote about for the anniversary of my Mom’s 84th birthday.

How can I tell you about my mother? This might sound silly. But in the 1941 movie “Dumbo,” there’s a scene where the captured mother elephant, through the bars of a cage, cradles little Dumbo in her trunk and sings:

Baby mine, don’t you cry

Baby mine, dry your eyes

Rest your head, close to my heart

Never to part

Baby of mine

I choke up whenever I see that, because I know that feeling. Forever loved, forever comforted, through whatever bars may separate you, never to part. If this is the last column I write about my mother, then you should know. That was what it felt like to be her son. And it was glorious.

She was born during the Depression and was raised in Manhattan in a ‘railroad’ apartment. She arrived the last of 6 six kids, fully 17 years between she and her oldest sister. Her father drove a bus, her mother stayed at home; sometimes keeping her out of school for company. She used to like telling the story of staying at home and sitting on the ‘stoop’ waiting for her brother to return from WW2 when her family was notified he was on the way home from his duty station in Iceland. They knew he was coming home, but didn’t know when he’d arrive. No worries, she was allowed to stay home from school because her mother felt that there was some things more important than school. She also was fond of telling the story that, while on an earlier Army leave, her brother John was late in seeing her school Christmas show. When he showed up at the school, the nuns of St. Ignatius school stopped the performance and had the kids restart it. Her 4th grade heart, she told her kids, swelled with pride because her brother was there. She and her school friends would hang out on the fire escapes. Her mom left this world when she was 11 and she was left with her dad and brother in that railroad apartment. That same year, in sixth grade, she met a boy who would one day become her husband. Later on when he was in the Army, he became part of the Old Guard. He walked the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington. She would often travel, chaperoned by her aunt and brother to Arlington, to just watch her boyfriend guard the tomb.

She was married at 21 and her own motherhood began at 23 with the birth of her son; followed 2 years later by the birth of her daughter.

Like many women of her generation, she concentrated on what she had: a family. She was a strong matriarch, vocal in her love. She kissed. She lectured. She enjoyed being part of a large family. She inspired with her tenacity. Once, when her son was being treated unkindly by a nun that questioned his ability, she took the long ride to the convent to point out to the good sister how wrong she was.

She made her kids breakfast, dinner and Halloween costumes. She was the one they woke at 3 a.m. after a bad dream. She was the one who got up early to put the kitchen oven on in her own railroad apartment so that her kids could dress in front of the open stove in winter. She made sure that her son knew that there was a neighbor of hers named Flip Finnigan who never made it home from Europe during WW2 and she kept a picture of him with her as a young kid sitting on his lap during one of his leaves. At one time she wanted to be a nurse, but she put those deferred dreams into her children and her family.

She became sick early on in her life. Multiple Sclerosis. She saw her ability to move become increasingly difficult, yet she didn’t really complain. She still had her family around her. It must have been hard. She saw her children grow, graduate college, marry and have children of their own. Sadly, she didn’t get to really enjoy or know her grandchildren or live long enough to see her two great granddaughters and of all the trials and tribulations she experienced in her short life, I know that this is the one that she would most regret as her grandchildren have grown into fine adults.

I guess she was like millions of great mothers and, of course, she was to us. In blogging as much as I do, I’ve written about a lot of things but for some reason, I have never really written about her. Sometimes I can almost hear her ask “When do you tell my story?” Today. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

And thanks to all the Moms out there for doing what they do.