April 29, 2000
A SPECIAL 81ST BIRTHDAY WISH FOR MY MOTHER
This letter ought to arrive in your 81st birthday—a time of rejoicing for a life well-lived. Rising from the steady background of loving dad and mom, a younger lady, a proficient pianist, and a fluent reader of Latin was pursued by a plethora of west St. Louis beaus. Then, in 1936, you met a bicycle supply boy, in whom, regardless of his comparatively low financial standing, you noticed one thing fantastic. His honesty and gentleness shone via beneath the tough exterior; you’d marry him whenever you have been simply nineteen. A tough-working man who can be a loyal father—in some way you knew.
You courageously endured via an financial melancholy and a world battle through which your husband was absent for 2 lengthy years, forcing you to boost your first son with out your husband. Your dad and mom lived with you thru the battle and, as they ready to go away at its conclusion, you and Ben instructed them they may stick with you for the remainder of their lives. They’d helped you throughout the battle, and now you’d take care of them. They each would die in your house. Within the post-war period, you gave delivery to a few extra youngsters, all of whom you showered with the deepest love and affection. With them you shared heat and luxury—you have been a mom to all of them. Like a chameleon you modified to satisfy their differing wants, all the time placing others earlier than your self.
Your firstborn was typical of firstborns, unbiased, and forceful like his father. He left dwelling at an early age for school and went on to journey the world and settle removed from dwelling, the place he grew to become the pinnacle of his personal family. Your daughter was extra such as you—mild, nurturing, and cautious—an solely daughter should have a particular place in a mom’s coronary heart. To your sickly third little one, you shed extra tears than you deserved. You nursed him again from the sting of demise, and even now you play an indispensable position in his life. And your youngest was impressed by his father’s mandate to be inquisitive. This mental wanderlust prompted much-unintended heartache, however he’s nonetheless the identical younger boy who talked of life’s search so way back.
Along with your youngsters raised, your husband’s love for you deepened, as did your love for him. The younger boy on the bicycle—in whom you noticed a lot, greater than fifty years in the past—had aged. Now not did he take part within the virile video games of youth. The arms that when hit baseballs lengthy distances, the coordination that nestled many a wedge shot near the opening, and the shoulders that carried giant sides of beef—did so now not. As Thornton Wilder mentioned, he was being “weaned away” from life. However his love for you was deeper than any that emanates from youthful vigor alone.
As his personal bodily vitality light, his fundamental concern was Mary Jane Hurley, the attractive younger lady on whose door he had knocked so way back. In his eyes, that’s who you continue to have been. After fifty years of sleeping in the identical mattress, separated by battle, struggling to make your funds, and watching youngsters whom you had cared for depart your loving dwelling, in any case that … you continue to had one another. A love so sturdy that those that have by no means skilled it couldn’t or wouldn’t ever perceive. But, tragically, it ended after simply fifty years. However be assured that when Ben’s final breath was taken, it was your title on his lips, your face in his eyes, your presence in his coronary heart. The wind nonetheless murmurs exterior your window and its sound is his sound, calling you.
For dwelling this life, a well-lived one, one in all joys and sorrows, triumphs and tragedies, you might be revered. Within the occasions since your husband was pressured to go away—not of his personal alternative—you will have endured and re-created your self. Whereas the physique deteriorates, your spirit continues to be sturdy. You’re the hero of your personal life—my dearest mom.
With my deepest love and affection,
With my most gracious appreciation,
Along with your and my father’s spirit all the time inside me,
I stay, your devoted son, John Gerard
(Postscript – Mary Jane Hurley Messerly died of a stroke on Sunday, September 18, 2005. She was 86 years previous. The day earlier than she died she took her final stroll, labored her final crossword puzzle, and listened to her final Cardinals baseball recreation.)
