The Perfect Mother's Day Gift

One of the very first testimonies I ever recieved about the truthfulness of The Savior's words came to me as a result of my mother's keys. My primary teacher, Sister Folgers (I never could quite reconcile the fact that my primary teacher seemed to be named after a brand of coffee. It seemed, somehow blasphemous) . Anyway, Sister Folgers told us that The Savior once said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I am known of them". I knew immediately that this was true because of my mother's keys.

When I was a very young boy, five or so, my mother would often take me shopping at The Woolworth's store in downtown Houston. If you have never been to a Woolworth's the experience is hard to describe but someone once said that all Woolworth's have this wonderful smell to them. They smell like pipe tobacco and stale popcorn and linoleum wax and bubble-gum rubbed around on the sole of a leather shoe.

Woolworths are stores filled with plastic objects that, for some reason, people find necessary to their existence. It is a magical place to explore, especially for a five year old boy who is small enough to see into the lower bins where dust covers the objects that the store clerks haven't quite gotten around to removing or replacing.

Because this was a more innocent age, my mother left me to roam the aisles of the store on my own. Even though the store was large and I was small and the shelves were much too large for me to see over, I never got lost. For whenever I felt the need to reconnect with my mother, all I had to do was stop for a moment and listen.

My mother carried a huge set of keys with her. I don't know why she needed so many but I have seen janitors with fewer keys on thier key rings. It was my mother's habit to jingle her keys every so often. So when I felt scared and overwhelmed in The Woolworth's, all I had to do was stop for a second and listen for my mother's keys. Soon they would jingle and I would know in which direction I needed to go to find comfort and safety.

The thing is...all throughout the store, there were other five year old boys, and they had mothers, and those mothers had keys...but I knew the sound of MY mother's keys. And I still do today.

When I was eight years old, on the Saturday before mother's day, I borrowed my dad's lawnmower and a quarter for a gallon of gas (yes it really was THAT long ago). And I started in search of lawns to mow so that I could earn enough money to purchase a decent mother's day gift for my mom.

I was eight and I reasoned that I was long past the time when a macaroni necklace spray painted gold or my hand print in some plaster of paris would be sufficient for a mother's day gift. It was time I bought my mom a REAL gift.

Now, any salesman will tell you that sales is purely a numbers game. If you knock on enough doors, you will make a sale. It is my experience, however, that no man wants an eight year old boy to mow his yard, at least not an eight year old boy over whom he holds no rights of corporal punishment. So I hauled that lawnmower up one street and down another before finally, a woman answered the door. When I gave her my sales pitch, she asked me, "Honey, why on earth, do you want three dollars to mow my yard?" I explained that I needed the money so that I could purchase a proper mother's day gift for my mom.

Well....I had inadvertantly stumbled across, what salesmen like to call "a close". So, when I finished that yard and collected my three dollars, plus a generous tip, I knew exactly what to do on my next call. When a man opened the door, I squared my jaw and I looked him straight in the eye, and in a firm, steady voice, I said, "Is your wife at home?"

I mowed two yards that day. After deducting for gas and Dr. Peppers I had six dollars; more money than I had ever held and certainly enough to buy my mom a decent mother's day gift. After dinner I pestered my father to take me to The Woolworth's so that I could find and purchase the gift.

We got to the store just as the manager was locking up. My father persuaded the man to let me in for five minutes so that I could buy my mom a gift.I had no idea what I was going to get my mom but I reasoned that with six dollars, I could easily afford the finest item in the store. I ran up and down the aisles until my eye finally settled on the most beautiful object I had ever seen.

It was an umbrella. Not just any umbrella, it was yellow...a kind of "electric" yellow. It had two inches of black fringe that ran around the edge and each of the ten spines that terminated at the edge was adorned with a six inch red tassle. To top it all off, there was a faux mother of pearl handle...it was breathtaking. It was, in fact, not only a decent mother's day gift. It was the PERFECT mother's day gift.

My feelings about the umbrella where confirmed when I brought it to the counter. My father grinned like I had seldom seen. "I can't wait for your mother to see THIS", he said. The manager voiced his approval as well, "Oh yeah...she's going to LOVE it". I couldn't wait for mom to see it either. I gave her the gift that night, just before bedtime. She was moved to tears. She started weeping more visibly when I mentioned that I hoped it would rain so she could take it with her to church the next day.

What I couldn't understand, however, was why, during family prayer, my mom prayed so fervently for sunshine the next day. After all, if it wasn't raining, she would have no need to take the umbrella. I finally reasoned that my mom was afraid that she might not have a fine enough dress to wear with such a wonderful umbrella. I knew, however, that no matter what my mom wore, nobody would notice it. All eyes would be on that magnificent umbrella and all the women in church would be jealous of my mom and wish that they had sons as wise and stalwart as I was.

So, I got out of bed and I knelt down in prayer and, despite my mother's prayer for sunshine, I prayed for rain.

I won.

I had never been so proud in all my life. We sat in church and, sure enough, every woman in the congregation was looking at my mother and her umbrella. I watched my mom sitting there, rock still, with the umbrella clutched tightly in her fist and then something happened. I saw her lip quiver as if she were trying not to cry...it was then that I saw and understood what was really going on. Contrary to my previous notion, I had fallen far short of giving my mother the perfect mother's day gift. And my pride morphed into shame.

For if I had mowed just two more yards, my mom could be sitting there in church with that marvelous umbrella, and the matching hat and gloves.

My mother and I did not ever really enjoy what you would call a close relationship. In truth, we butted heads much more often than we saw eye to eye. Those who know me, I am sure, have no doubt as to whose feet we can squarely lay the blame for the conflict. And yet, my mom has been gone from this earth for many years now and hardly a day goes by that I don't ponder at some point about how wonderful it would be to walk beside her; to feel her slip her hand into mine; to feel her kiss upon my brow; or to hear her jingle her keys...just one more time.

On the day of my mother's funeral, it rained. And for the second time in my life, as I knelt before The Lord in prayer, the things we talked about were my mother, and the weather. And for the second time, The Lord saw fit to grant my petition. He did it in a curious way. As we stepped from our cars to my mother's grave site, the sun burst through the clouds and we dedicated my mother's grave in a circle of sunshine while the rain poured down all around us...almost as if we were sheltered by an umbrella.

So, the question remains, is there such a thing as a 'perfect' mother's day gift? What can you give a woman who, like The Savior, literally went down into the valley of death, so that she could give me life? Is there a gift fine enough for a woman who, like Moses, spent forty years preparing me for a world that she would neither enter or see? Can you find a gift fit for someone such as that? I believe you can.

On the day that I see my mother again (and I WILL see her again). I hope to be in posession of the same pure, clean, innocent spirit that she brought into the world. How grateful I am for a Savior that makes such a gift possible. For it would be the only gift worthy of any mother and, I would submit, the only gift she would deem truly perfect.

But until that day, a gold macaroni necklace or a plaster hand print will have to do.

An Eternal Truth About Women

There are just sometimes when a realization hits you and the eyes of your understanding are opened and you realize that you have just uncovered an eternal principle. Thus it was with me while I was brushing my teeth this morning. I was pondering the story that God took from Adam, a rib from which he formed a woman and I realized that, whatever women recieve from men, they return magnified.

If you give a woman a smile, she will give you her heart.

If you give her a house, she will give you a home.

If you give her love, she will give you a family.

If you give her groceries, she will give you a meal.

And if you give her just a little crap...