When God Made Moms

First off, Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful moms out there. This week’s “Postcard” is one by request from a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and splendid ranch woman who now lives in town. I won’t tell her age, but she does admit to being a few years beyond my 85. You can do the math.

Monthly, I publish a newsletter for our local Presbyterian Church and this “Mother of the Year” submitted the “Mother’s Day” greeting, which she suggested might be worth passing along to readers of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. This piece was written by Erma Bombeck and submitted by Gloria Rakness. Enjoy!

While the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of “overtime” when the Angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.” And the Lord said, “Have you ever read the specs on this order? She has to be completely washable, but not plastic, have 180 movable parts – all replaceable, run on black coffee and leftovers, have a lap that disappears when she stands up, have a kiss which can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair, and have six pairs of hands!”

The Angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pair of hands…not possible.”

“It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord. “It’s the three pairs of eyes mothers have to have.”

“This is on the standard model?,” asked the Angel. 

The Lord nodded, “One pair can see through closed doors when she asks, ‘What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows. Another pair in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn’t, but what she has to know, and of course, the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflects, ‘I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”

“Lord,” said the Angel, touching His sleeve gently, “go to bed and work on it tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” said the Lord, “I’m so close to creating something so close to Myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she’s sick, can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower.”

The Angel circled the model of the mother very slowly.

“It’s too soft,” she signed. 

“But tough,” said the Lord excitedly. “You can’t imagine what this mother can do or endure.”

“Can it think?” inquired the Angel.

“Not only think, but it can reason and compromise,” said the Creator.

Finally, the Angel bent over and ran her fingers across the cheek. 

“There’s a leak,” she pronounced. “I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model. You can’t ignore the stress factor.”

The Lord moved in for a closer look and gently lifted the drop of moisture to His finger where it glistened and sparkled in the light. 

“It’s not a leak,” He said. “It’s a tear.” 

“A tear?” asked the Angel. “What’s it for?”

“It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment, compassion, pain, loneliness and pride,” answered the Lord.

“You are a genius,” said the Angel.

Somberly, God said, “I didn’t put it there.”