Photo: Graham Archives, circa 2016

Monday 5 Things™…..Dear Mom…..

Each year during this month I take time with Monday 5 Things to honor a loving woman named Maxine who I called mom. It has been over 4 years since she passed away from Alzheimer’s. A wretched disease that is the sixth leading cause of death in the US and kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer – combined. More than 1 in 9 people aged 65 or older suffer from Alzheimer’s disease; two-thirds of those are women.  My mom loved to read and gave me the passion for reading that has been with me since my first book. This morning’s M5T is for my mom, for your mom, for moms everywhere, and for the reasons we have to be thankful for them, as seen through the eyes and pens of the literary world.

1. A Mother’s Teaching.

“…a mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is the right amount, what is too much, and the kind that makes you want more of what is bad for you. A mother helps her baby flex her first feelings of pleasure. She teaches her when to later exercise restraint, or to take squealing joy in recognizing the fluttering leaves of the gingko tree, to sense a quieter but more profound satisfaction in chancing upon an everlasting pine. A mother enables you to realize that there are different levels of beauty and therein lie the sources of pleasure, some of which are popular and ordinary, and thus of brief value, and others of which are difficult and rare, and hence worth pursuing.” ~ Amy Tan, ‘Saving Fish from Drowning’.

2. A Mother’s Power.

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” ~ Maya Angelou, ‘I Know Why Caged Birds Sing’.

3. A Mother’s Legacy.

“But behind all your stories is your mother’s story, for hers is where yours begins.” ~ Mitch Albom, ‘For One More Day’.

4. A Mother’s Encouragement.

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston, ‘A Biography of the Spirit’.

5. A Mother’s Prayer.

“The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter.” ~ Louisa May Alcott, ‘Little Women’.

Here’s to a week of remembering and celebrating the mothers who gave us life, who nurtured us, protected us, and who taught us to dream, to be inspired, to live, to love, and above all to true to ourselves.

© 2021 D. Paul Graham, all rights reserved.

D. Paul Graham is passionate about people, culture, photography and business. He has embraced his wanderlust with his travels around the globe and is at peace with his need for spirited drives in all things automotive.

You can find M5T each Monday here on www.southmag.com and by friending D. Paul Graham on Facebook. Paul is also a contributing photographer to South Magazine. His photographic work can be found on Instagram @dpgraham and at www.imageGRAHAM.com . Your feedback is always welcome. Email Paul at dpg@imagegraham.com