I first posted this on Mother's Day, May 14, 2017; I am adding a few thoughts for 2021 below.
Grateful for all the mothers who have been in my life.
(Oops -- this ended up being a bit long and a bit sentimental.)
Because people have married young and lived long in my family, I have known many, starting with three great-grandmothers:
Valerie Myrtle Mulligan Sledge [my father's mother's mother] had the best name; I was young when she died, but I do remember her as feisty.
Lydia Holcombe [my mother's mother's mother] lived the longest -- born in 1885 and living until I was through college and almost married. Her children and their children and their children learned about hard work and simple living. I remember her porch, which faced Cold Mountain. And I remember when she got indoor plumbing.
Thelma Joyce Bohanan [my father's father's mother] was a lifelong learner who taught me a love of words -- especially crossword puzzles -- and history. She put her high-school Latin to use on a regular basis.
Sarah Pearl Shreve [my mother's mother] was known as Pearl, but had formally changed her first name to Sarah because she thought Sally was a silly name. Losing her during elementary school was my first real grief. She was a consummate gardener with a small commercial nursery. I never see an azalea without thinking of her -- we had every known variety at our house, from her stock. (2021 addendum: I should have mentioned that she was also an educator, though I do not know for how long. After attending Mars Hill Normal School for three years, she returned to teach in a one-room schoolhouse near her home in the Smoky Mountains. All I remember learning of this was that some of the boys were bigger than she was and did not wear shoes to school. During my third year of college, the same could almost be said of her grandson.)
Esther Jeannette Bohanan [my father's mother] was the grandmother I knew best, and this (2017) is my first Mother's Day without her. I am grateful that about a decade ago, I stayed with her rather than at a hotel when I had a meeting in DC. Every evening we would have a simple dinner and then talk -- mostly politics -- until our eyes could not stay open. I do not remember her reading much when I was a kid, but later in life she read a lot -- I remember seeing JK Rowling, Michael Moore, and the Washington Post regularly, and going to a Harry Potter movie with her.
I was also lucky to have known a grandmother-in-law for about the first decade of my marriage. Like my own great-grandmother, Izzy was feisty and had a terrific name: Isabella Beanblossom Lauerman [my wife's mother's mother] was never shy about her opinions, and was often witty. She refused to die until the end of her birthday, when she knew the last flowers and cards had arrived.
My own mother Jackie Bohanan is thoughtful, devoted, and proud of her small brood -- always doing whatsoever she could for all of us. From her my brother Bob and I both I learned a love of cooking.
And I have a mother-in-law who has been nothing but a joy to know -- including me as a son from the very beginning. Judy Helbing has always treated our dogs as her own as well!
And that brings me to the best of all -- Pamela Hayes-Bohanan, the love of my life who has learned motherhood alongside me as I learn fatherhood. I could not imagine a better partner in parenting.
Mother's Day 2021 Memoriams
This mother's day -- coincidentally also our 34th wedding anniversary -- is the first without my mother, who died last July 24. My post about the music she loved is my best memorial.
It was a very difficult summer, losing not only her but three additional mother figures I did not include above. Our daughter-in-law lost both her mother Betty and her grandmother during the summer. We had met these beautiful women only once, at Thanksgiving 2019, and had been looking forward to spending more time with them.
We also lost our dear friend Jackie Smith-Miller, the mother of a close friend of ours who included our family in her family's Easter dinners just about every year since we moved to Bridgewater. We enjoyed her wit and wisdom both at those holiday gatherings and in many other connections throughout the past two decades. We miss her greatly.
