Did you step on your mama’s heart?
I was a young mother. I didn’t know much. But, I knew the minute I held each of my children I was in love for life. When my youngest child was about a year old, a birdlike old woman, stooped and hunched over with a twisted wood cane approached us at church. With a dour look on her face, she pointed her ugly stick at my angelic looking baby girl and said in an unfriendly voice, “When they are little like her, they step on your toes; when they are older, they step on your hearts.”
I remember I didn’t say anything, just sort of nodded and hurried away thinking. Hmmmph! Not this baby girl, she’s a little ray of sunshine. She’s cuddly and I love her so much and she’s a mama’s girl who will love me forever.
Fifteen years later, I was at a restaurant with that same daughter who was then sixteen years old. At another table in the restaurant was an older friend of mine named Peggy. She introduced us to her ninety-year-old mother. Her mother had a head of white perfectly coiffed hair, a beautiful smile and a friendly face. We joked about it being Mother/Daughter Day. Peggy’s mother motioned me over with a twinkle in her eye and whispered, “When your children are little, they step on your toes, when they grow up, they step on your heart. Grow roses. Roses teach you the lesson: beautiful despite the thorns . . .like our children.”
I grow roses. When I tend my roses, I often think about those two completely different ladies saying the same thing about children stepping on toes and hearts. The thorns on roses hurt! I shudder to think of the crown of thorns. Thorns make my arm and fingers bleed, but I can forgive the thorn when that fragrant, breathtakingly beautiful blossom blooms. The way God forgives us.
Most everyone has stepped on their mama’s heart. Some children only tiptoe on their mother’s heart; others have not only stepped, but they have trampled on their mother’s heart. You’ve gotta have a really strong heart to be a mama.
I often wonder about how many times I stepped on my mother’s heart. She’s in heaven now. Thankfully, she died knowing how much I loved her. I knew how much she loved me. Mom had saved my letters and cards, all tied together in a blue ribbon in her underwear drawer. In the margins of my letters, she wrote happy comments to me . . . knowing I wouldn’t see the comments until she died. She loved me despite the times I had stepped on her heart.
My youngest child – who happened to be with me each time I had heard that expression – didn’t like me much when she was sixteen years old. When she was twenty-one years old, though, she wrote me a beautiful letter saying how glad she is that I’m her mother. What a gift! She’s my baby girl.
Mothers know a lot . . . they love you unconditionally . . .and forgive you when you step on their heart. The same way God does. Happy Mother’s Day! by Suzanne Ruff