Mother’s Day, 2005

Mother’s Day is nearly always a rather melancholy affair for us. We live far from our mothers so we don’t have the opportunity to go and visit. We do our best to call. We have no children of our own so we get no visits or calls. My wife may receive a card or even a gift from one or more of our many godchildren. That’s about it.

On CBS’s Sunday Morning this morning Ben Stein had a rather touching piece on his mother who died in 1997. He recounted the many ways in which she had interfered with his life and pestered him throughout his life and noted that she wasn’t bothering him anymore.

That’s not something I’ve ever had to worry about from my mother. My mom has always encouraged me to be strong and courageous and independent and to have a good time (to be like her, actually). I’ve failed at this but I keep trying. She’s never pestered me, or bothered me, or nagged.

Like all social animals human beings derive much of their behaviors through imitating others. Our parents are our earliest models. We start by imitating their language and it’s from them that we initially learn to be human. We also learn what it means to be an adult from their models.

Through all my adult life my mother has been the only parent whose behavior I’ve been able to learn from. For the last few years I’ve been learning from her how to go through old age with courage, wisdom, grace, and joy. I could hardly have a better model.

UPDATE: The complete text of Ben Stein’s comments can be found here.