FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
I asked a florist once which was the busiest day – Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day? He looked at me somewhat incredulously and said: “Gerry, everyone has a mother but not everyone has a lover.”
And so Sunday,Mother’s Day, a florist’s busiest day, is upon us but before I write about mothers let me write a little about grandmothers. To all the wonderful grandmothers, and great grandmothers, out there – happy Mother’s Day; enjoy the following quotes many of which you could well have written.
*Grandmas are moms with lots of practice.
* When grandmothers enter the door, discipline flies out the window.
* Grandmothers hold our tiny hands for just a little while, but they hold our hearts forever.
* Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild (Welsh Proverb. And my grandchildren are half Welsh).
* If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I’d have had them first.
* My grandkids believe I’m the oldest thing in the world. And after two or three hours with them, I believe it too.
* Grandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing old.
* You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother
* An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer and you start to age quickly.
* I wish I had the energy that my grandchildren have -…if only for self-defense!
* One of the most powerful handclasps is that of a new grandbaby around the finger of a grandmother.
* It’s amazing how grandparents seem so young once you yourself become one.
* Whenever I (Gerry Moran) hear the word Grandma I always think of Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) the famous American artist who was born on a farm in upstate New York in 1860. Afflicted with arthritis in her seventies she could no longer work on the intricacies of embroidery and switched to oil painting creating scenes that reflected the simplicity of her childhood and a time gone by. Her charming, naïve art captivated the American public and Grandma Moses became an icon of American painting. She died in 1961 aged 101.
And so to mothers
Let’s start with this recent accolade to a mother from Michelle Yeoh, Oscar winner for Actress in a Leading role for Everything Everywhere All at Once. “I have to dedicate this to my mom, all the moms in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them none of us would be here tonight, she is eighty-four and I’m taking this home (Malaysia) to her.”
* A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of apple pie for five people, promptly announces that she never did care for apple pie.
* Martha Roosevelt, mother of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th, and youngest, President of the United States (1901-1909) was once asked by a reporter: “Are you proud of your son, Mrs. Roosevelt?” to which Martha replied: “Which one?”
* According to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, mother-daughter relationships are the strongest of all parent-child bonds when it comes to the common ways they process emotion.
* “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: let it be.” Like many a Beatle fan I always assumed that Mother Mary mentioned in Paul McCartney’s song: Let It Be (quoted above) was Mary, the mother of Jesus. Not so. Mother Mary was actually McCartney’s own mother. During a turbulent time in his life – he was drinking, doing drugs and felt that the Beatles were breaking up (which they were) – he was visited in a dream by his mother, Mary, who died of breast cancer, 10 years earlier, when he was 14-years-old. “It was wonderful for me,” McCartney said, “she was warm, comforting and very reassuring and that’s the wonderful thing about dreams because you are reunited with that person for a second.’”
The next morning, feeling restored, Paul McCartney wrote the song Let It Be, inspired by his Mother Mary.
* Finally, Dave (back living at home) is chatting with Jack, his best pal, in the pub. Jack: “So what’s it like living at home again?”
Dave: “Well, every night my mother takes my shoes off.” Jack: “When you get in?” Dave: “No, when I want to go out!”
