My Mother, Enid

April 21, 2010 | by Jeep Collins

Growing up, our family had many traditions. On Mother's Day we were always given a carnation to wear to church. The first time that I remembered doing this my mother gave my sister, father and me red carnations but hers was white. When I questioned her about why hers was white she told me that you wear red is if your mother is living, and white if she is deceased. I asked, "What about Nana, isn't she your mother?" She told me that Nana was her stepmother and that her real mother had died when she was six months old. This was the first time I realized that everyone does not have a mother, and that someday I too might lose my mother. That Mother's Day I was especially glad to wear a red carnation.

When we are young there is no one more important to us than our mother, but to mothers the feeling never goes away. I remember seeing the movie Treasure Island when I was very small. There was a scene where the pirates were chasing John Hawkins up the mast of a ship with a knife. Some years later my mother told me that during that scene I crawled into her lap and asked her, "Where is that boy's muzzer?"