Sunday, May 13, 2007

Mother's Day 2007

At Central Baptist Church in Downtown Miami, the grand place where I grew up, a place surely a part of heaven, Mother's Day was big. At the worship service, the recognition of the oldest mother began when all the mothers were asked to stand. They were applauded when they did so, in a church where we simply did not applaud. (We were "high church Baptist".) Following the applause, those who had been mothers for X years were asked to be seated, then X + 5 and so on, until the oldest remained standing.

It was always Mrs. Dorothy left standing there, at least in my memory. I marveled at how anyone could be that old. She was dressed to the T, had snow white hair, and a sweet smile. She was related to practically an entire section of our big church sanctuary. My mother bought shoes for my siblings and me at her shoe store in Coral Gables, by then run by one of her several daughters. (As a younger mother, Mrs. Dorothy was a business woman, as well as a Christian mom. Those types don't appear solely in Proverbs.)

There was an orchid for the youngest mom too, but this woman usually changed from year to year, so I don't remember any particular one, just that they seemed to get prettier and prettier as I moved into adolescence.

Flowers were everywhere on Mother's Day Sunday at church: one of the members was a florist. There were even flowers at the entrance ways to the sanctuary, small corsages for the women, if necessary, but all the mom's seemed to be wearing some sort of corsage given them at home. There were also boutonnieres for the men, a red carnation for those whose moms were still on earth, and a white one for those whose moms had gone to heaven.

I would get a white carnation today. I don't much like that, frankly.

2 comments:

Sean Meade said...

God bless you in your loss, Paul

mmvb said...

We were thinking of you on Mother's Day, Paul, and appreciate your entry.