Mother's Day

It's taken me a while to get around to this post, but it's been mulling around in my brain for several days. This was my first Mother's Day in Jamaica. I must confess it was a very emotional one. It was emotional for several reasons, but the biggest reason was that I wasn't able to be with my beautiful mother. This was compounded by the fact that Reba Rambo lost her mother, Dottie Rambo, on mother's day. My brother, Howard, called me early Sunday morning to wish me a Happy Mother's Day and while we were talking his college roommate, Bishop Jim Swilley from Church in the Now, beeped in to give him the news. Now, even though I have never met the Rambos, they still played a huge role in my brother's musical formation years. He use to listen to their music by the hours and since he listened, the rest of us in the house listened as well. Another compounding factor was that I know of several other mothers who are battling brain tumors and my heart was sad for their children. I guess it affected me so because I realized that one day I, too, will lose my mother. And, quite frankly, I'm not ready nor will I ever be ready to face that day. So, even though I was close to getting in the fetal position in a corner of my closet and staying there all day, I didn't. Here's the reason why:

My redheaded sweetheart!

I, too, am a mother to the most wonderful, sweet, precious, charming, at times trying, little boy. Many days he keeps me going. He had made me a card at school on Friday and it took everything within him not to give it to me ahead of time. As you can see, the card had a heart cutout and he made a "C" in glitter on the front for Carla. So, because I didn't want him asking his daddy why mommy stayed in the closet all day, I pulled myself together and kept going.

Another reason I kept going was because we had a missions team here and because we were honoring the mothers in our little church. We made up care packages for all the mothers and had three small gifts to honor the oldest mother, the mother with the most children and the third one was drawn out of a "hat." We were going to give a gift to the youngest mother too, but we really didn't want to promote that, if you know what I mean. Children having children is rampant here.

The care packages were made up of motel soaps, shampoos and lotions that Todd's mom collected for us, along with various other health care items that had been donated. We also added some "sweeties." Sweeties are what the Jamaicans call candy. A piece of candy goes a long way here. We placed all of these items in a Ziploc bag and each mother received on of these.

At 54 years old, Sister Dell was the recipient of the oldest mother.

Sister Wright was the mother with the most kids. She has seven. She couldn't stand because she had one baby asleep on her lap.

This lady, a first time visitor, was the recipient of the third gift.

Todd and Nathan gave all of the kids a blow pop.

After church we took the team to a Mother's Day buffet at the Coral Cliff. It was a nice Jamaican buffet. Nathan enjoyed making trips back and forth to the orange juice dispenser. I enjoyed the "made to order" omelet, and Todd enjoyed the sliver of smoked ham he insisted the chef carve off of the already clean carved bone. (Side note: Todd priced a smoked ham in the store yesterday and it was US$92.00.) As nice as it was here, I wish I could have been at the Ramada Inn in Plant City celebrating with my family. Even though the rest of the world celebrated Mother's Day last Sunday, I will be celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day this coming Monday when my mama and daddy arrive. WHOO HOO!

You can read more about my mother at my brother's blog here.