This week on Tim Challies' blog, he wrote about the effect of looking through old pictures of his kids:
"There are thousands of these photos, each one a little link to days gone by and to time that has already passed. While there is joy in looking at those old shots and losing myself in memories, there is also a deep sadness. Why? Because every photo looks like an opportunity lost. Wasn't it just yesterday that the kids were toddling around, barely able to walk? Wasn't it just last summer that they ran in circles outside trying desperately to get some dollar-store kites to soar into the air?"
When my mother looks back at the past, as she undoubtedly does, and she ponders the fleeting nature of time, she won't look back in regret. At least she shouldn't. Because she showed up.
When I consider the major events of both my youth and my adulthood, I remember my mother being there. Even a cursory glance around my office displays memorabilia from priorities I've had that all come with thoughts of Mom. There are the relics from coaching high school basketball in two different states; she was there.
I have an old picture of one of my youth flag football teams that I coached while I was at UNI. Those same kids enjoyed football helmet-shaped treats from my mother after a game.
There's even a poster-sized picture of the night in high school I crossed the finish in time for our relay team to set the school record.
When I look at that poster, I remember exactly where she was on the infield of the track, shouting encouragement. Because she was there.
What I am most impressed with, though, and what I find hardest to do myself as a parent, is to do more than show up for the major events. Mom showed up on the average days. In the long hours of the afternoon and evening, with the weight of work and 3 kids and a husband and a house to care for, I remember her showing up when no one else was watching: showing up to play wiffle ball in the backyard, or showing up to play UNO on a Sunday afternoon, or even showing up on the back of a hay rack to stack bales with me in the summer.
We were usually a Sunday morning and a Sunday night church family growing up. If you asked me or my siblings, however, you'd discover that we were quite sure that Sunday morning was enough. Some Sunday nights, if we could time it just right, we would start ping-pong games in our basement maybe twenty or thirty minutes before it was time to get ready for evening church. If we could get Mom to show up, and if we could get the intensity level of those games at a high enough level, we had a chance of "accidentally" running out of time to make the service. I'm confident the sermons of time spent together in shouts of triumph or despair in that basement were far more important than any we missed while not in the pew. And I remember all that because Mom showed up.
I've got a lot of pictures of the event days in my life when Mom showed up. I have even more pictures in my heart of the non-event days, when I didn't know her level of fatigue because she didn't want me to know, when she showed up as well.
She still shows up. She shows up at events, like when I'm giving the sermon at church or my children have a birthday party. She shows up at non-events, like when we're remodeling our house and she commits a weekend to rolling primer on our walls. And she shows up on the phone, around 8:30 every Sunday night, to talk about the week. Her example challenges me to show up for my kids too; not just when they have a program or a game or an event, but when I'm tired after a long day and they just want to play soccer in the yard, or Sequence at the table, or even when they want to "style" my hair.
My wife is in our kitchen right now with our children on this cloudy Sunday afternoon. She has shown up to teach them more about cooking and the art of making jam. She is a wonderful mother. I should know: I've spent a lifetime watching what one looks like.
Happy Mother's Day.
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