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This Sunday we celebrate Mother's Day. Some may prefer to think of it as Family Day, and that is quite fitting, because Motherhood is all about family. Mothers usually are givers. My own mother, bless her, was a giver. When we were little and Dad was overseas, of course Mom held the purse strings, so she ended up paying for her Mother's Day gift. Money was not plentiful and she often ended up with another dish. But she always just loved what we gave her. We would make our own cards and she always treasured them. She also kept them in a scrapbook and years later she would still look over that book.,

Between the depression and the war money was scarce and food was rationed, but we children never went hungry. I used to wonder why Mom always waited until we were fed before she ate, and why she always said she didn't like meat. I finally figured it out. Mom was a giver! Her children never went hungry.

I remember helping her pack boxes to send overseas for Dad. She would make fruitcakes and wrap them well. Tobacco, warm socks (she had made) and various foods that would keep. She then wrapped it well with flower bags, sewing it up, and then came the paper. How she did it I'll never know!

Mom was a great cook. Many a cake or pan of cookies never got the chance to cool down (five girls made sure of that). She always had the whitest wash out. Our water source was a pump outside. She heated water in a boiler, on our old Star ,and her washer was a big tub and a scrub board. But that was what most homes had to work with.

I hope you will pardon my walk down Memory Lane, but there will be some who will also share these memories. I could go on and on, remembering those earlier days. We did not have much in the way of material possessions, but we had love! We were richly blessed! Others may have had more of earth's treasures, but some may not have had a mother's love.

"Lord, bless all mothers and their families. May all children be able to experience a mother's love that they too can look back one day and say they were rich! They too were blessed with a giving mother. That is true riches!"

Happy Mother's Day, dear readers! With love, Barbara!

Barbara Watling is a poet and devout Christian from Miramichi who offers her unique views in her weekly column.