Perfect Gifts
Rev. Holly Baylies
UU Church of Wakefield
Mother’s Day Service
May 6, 2005

From the time I was a small child old enough to understand the idea of Mothers Day. I worried. It was so hard to find just the right gift to express how I felt and with only one public opportunity a year to express myself the gift had to be just right Pre-school made it a bit easier as we all made hand printed cards or glued together paper baskets of fruit; each apple, orange and banana carefully cut out, colored and placed into the basket with scotch tape. But these were only paper things and they would yellow in time, get lost or ripped and probably, quickly forgotten. So every year the search began for the perfect gift and every decade had its own idea of what Mom needed, of that special Mothers' day memento that would say it all!

After the pre-school era of cut and paste came the kitchen gadgets, utensils and appliances to make Mom's life as the resident chef, easier. The teen years brought the #1 MOM jewelry, necklaces, rings and bracelets. That lasted just long enough for every kid to notice that there were thousands of #1 Mom's flashing their guaranteed 'one of a kind' pendant all over town!

When mothers went back to work the stores and advertising gurus reshaped the meaning of Mothers Day once again and suggested kid leather brief cases and dainty gilded engraved pen and pencil sets. Vacations away from the kids and a night out at a dinner- theater became popular.

Advertising covered every possible option for every kind of mom, from diamond bracelets with easy payment plans to idiot proof cameras, to rollerblades, cell phones, sophisticated cooking tools such as my favorite, the' bread man'( excuse me ... bread-MAN?) must be a typo! ... with a large viewing window, a fruit and nut beeper and a 12 hour timer so you will at least know when the quote "homemade" bread is done. 

Of all of the suggestions which peppered the daily and Sunday papers all last week there was one full page add which really cut to the chase. It said: "Skip the flowers, forget the candy, one thousand bucks will be just dandy." Just buy mom a new car and get $1,000 back." 
 Today candy and flowers, the merchants tell us, are not good enough. So how exactly are we supposed to celebrate and honor our mothers or those who have mothered us through the best and hardest of our times over the years? Or maybe I should ask what's next on the list of commercially prepared gifts for consideration; an all expense paid trip to the moon, a day of R.&R. at the virtual reality relaxation salon on a remote island in the Pacific? How about a new and improved robotic maid that also reads to the kids and answers their questions?

Our lives have become terribly busy, surprisingly so in light of all the conveniences that were created for the sole purpose of making our lives easier instead of more difficult. Often time saving devises have only succeeded in creating more empty space to fill, not to encourage leisure, but so that more work can be accomplished in the time saved.

Today the buzz word for every working parent is finding "quality time" to spend with their children. What about the reverse? Making "quality time" to spend with our parents or with those special nurturers who have influenced our lives in a positive and caring way. TIME is our greatest and most valuable commodity and filling it completely with job related, or productive moments seems to have left us only tightly scheduled slots in our appointment books, to stop and to smell the roses. For some whose lives are too filled with the game of productive living, the idea of time spent together for no reason other than to just "be together" again can be worth more than any gift ever bought.

As we come to adulthood, taking the time to be together, to enjoy one another and in some cases to really get to know each other, not just as a caregiver, a parent and a child, with blessings and imperfections, annoyances and quirks, and insights, but as adults whose experiences with one another good and bad, transcend one whole lifetime.

The second gift we owe our caregiver/ parents is that of recognition, of attempting to understand what parenting may have been like for them. Events that may have seemed intolerable and embarrassing for us as kids have a way of becoming very precious memories for us as adults. Before my mothers Memorial service, 9 years ago, the family sat around and told stories for hours. My mother was an extraordinary woman, deeply philosophical and perceptive but of few words in the right places, who did what was right at the time, often with her unusual sense of humor that she never even knew she had, surfacing in unforgettable moments of great embarrassment to us as kids.

I observed her once, from the back of a school bus, unaware that it was my mother I was watching with much commentary, unaware that it was my mother I was laughing and pointing at, as she ran behind the cows at a local dairy farm, wielding a shovel and a bucket to collect some fresh manure for her prolific garden.

 I remember how mortified I was when she was stopped in heavy traffic by a police officer and ticketed as she drove through the center of town in her tiny English Ford, carrying three very muddy boys packed into the open trunk of the car, who had fallen into the pond while fishing, not to mention the fact that she was wearing her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers with her hair in rollers! 
Or finding out from one of her fellow swimmers at the YMCA that she often sat in the steam room wearing her enormous red and black fur hat to keep the fur moist and supple and upon leaving the Y she hollered across the street at one of the men who also enjoyed the senior swim at the same time she did.. “Hey” she hollered, “Gee, I’ve never seen you with your clothes on!”

Most mothers of my generation and those before me, gave us their time for years and often recognized wisely in silence who we could be even before we knew it ourselves. Even now I marvel at my mother's insight and patience when I was kicked out of the art department as a college freshman at Plymouth State for eating the assignment, a still life, a large bowl of fruit, because it was late and I was hungry, then I arranged and painted the pits and the cores and the peels and seeds because I found the remains far more interesting.

Most parents probably would have sided with the college, instead when the Administrator called and told her of my inexcusable behavior, and I had been ‘banned from the art room forever,’ she laughed and agreed with me, adding that ‘my artistic view of such an exercise made good sense to her and the instructor was far too rigid and unappreciative of my ingenuity.’

The perfect gifts of Time and Recognition, are two ancient precious ideas, often not recalled in the presence of those we love while they are still alive are almost too simple for this technologically dependent society to bother much with any more.

Yet time and recognition are the two critical life affirming needs, that can sustain us through just about anything!

In the years to follow, as a minister, I have seen so many mothers faces at times of great joy and under tremendous stress. Mothers whose children are about to choose a life partner, beam and glow with a pride and a radiance that outshines the glow of a warm spring sun. There is an energy about them that penetrates even the most stoic of people. I believe I have seen the alter flowers smile. I have seen Mothers, who have unexpectedly and tragically outlived their children, sitting in the front pew, surrounded by people who care but living a grief that is so private and theirs alone to endure.

Mothers touching the faces, counting the fingers and toes of their newborn children, who know for sure that God exists and lives in the miracle of their every breath.

Mothers saying good bye to their first child off to school, turning away with tears in their eyes wondering if anyone else could ever care for them as well as they. Angry mothers who fear for their children when they disobey, happy mothers finding a home made card on their breakfast tray for no particular reason. Lonely mothers whose lives must start all over again when their spouse leaves or dies, when their children grow up and move away.  Mothers in quiet anguish seeing their sons and daughters off to war.

Mothers faces reveal the eternal soul of all of humankind, they are the strength, the keepers of the breath of life, they are the conscience we learned to grow into, they are the quiet believers in and keepers of our dreams, our biggest fans even if we never made the honor roll or played varsity sports, they are the advocates of our creative selves, the believers in all of our special dreams.

After my mother died, I was going through the boxes in her closet that I had left for last. Inside each of the boxes were nearly 50 years worth of cards and drawings and little notes, poems and thoughts from each one of her five children. She saved everything we ever gave her. On the very bottom of one box was a wrinkled and faded paper basket filled with fruit. There was a banana and apple and an orange.

On the back it said" Love From Helen, Miss Wrights school 1950. Mothers Day." It was carefully wrapped in wax paper, sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard so it wouldn't tear.

Of all the things I remember giving my mother, that was one gift I never expected to find. There it was, 47 years old. Just as fresh and crisp as the day I drew it.

Finding it among her things was her Mothers Day gift to me. 

A treasure which I will keep always, one that will never decrease in value, will never need to be shined or washed or fixed, just one small child's drawing carefully wrapped and saved, that reassured me once again,  how much I was loved. Thanks Mom, I really needed that.

So be it. .... Amen