The older I get the more I appreciate parents. Fathers and Mothers. The closer Mother’s Day gets, the more I’m grateful to my mom, bless her soul. This year I channeled my inner Julio Iglesias to come up with the start of a Mother’s Day column. So, here we go.

To all the mothers I’ve loved before, who’ve wandered in and out my door.

May the sun shine forever warm upon your face (get ready for the chicken-bone ending)

And, sweetly kiss your tulips.

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Moms are good savers of stuff, especially stuff from or about their children. They are “A Number 1 scrapbookers,” too. I know before my very own saintly mother passed a few years ago, she started to unload all the mementos she kept of her four children. Old report cards (with comments from teachers like, “Donald talks too much.” “Donald needs to pay attention.” “Donald can do better.”), school awards, art projects we completed, newspaper clippings that mentioned our names and Mother’s Day cards me and my sisters created for her when we were super young and relatively cute.

Okay. Moms are, in fact, good hoarders.

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Here is something we children of mothers can clip out of the newspaper and stick to the fridge door. I found it while researching in old newspapers. This was on Page 1 of the May 4, 1923 Oxford Leader. It’s attributed to Michigan governor (1921-1927) Alex J. Groesbeck.

Mother’s Day Proclamation

In compliance with our beautiful custom, which in a-few years has come to be universally observed throughout the land, the time has come to set apart a day in honor of American motherhood. The American home is at once the cradle and the bulwark of all that is finest and best in our present day civilization, and the American mother is the heart of that home. If the home spirit is what it should be the major portion of the credit belongs to mothers. It is impossible for us to compute the debt we owe our mothers, and it is only fitting in this way we should pay our tribute of respect and devotion to the mothers of the nation, living and dead.

Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Governor of the State of Michigan, I do hereby designate and proclaim Sunday, May Thirteenth, 1923, as Mother’s Day, and I call upon our people, both old and young, to gather in their several places of worship and take part in services appropriate to the day. And let absent sons and daughters take this occasion to visit the mother in the old home, or, where such a visit is impossible, let them send a message of cheer and greeting.

In accordance with a resolution of the Congress of the United States, I further request the people of Michigan on the day aforesaid to display the United States flag in their homes and in other suitable places, as a fitting expression of their desire to pay homage to American motherhood.

Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the State this Twenty-seventh day of April, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, and of the Commonwealth the eighty-seventh.

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Last week I typed up the column headlined, Parents, don’t give up on your kids, about how a mom and dad parented their daughter who, at the age of 11 months, was diagnosed with diabetes. To which some readers responded. Here’s one from the Clarkston area.

Don, I always read your column and the May 3 issue really touched me, so I thought it deserved a response from another Clarkston “kid.” I was born in December, 1947 and a year later, was back at St. Joe’s, critically ill. I spent a month in the hospital, with my heart stopping twice, bowel obstruction surgery and gangrene starting in the toes of my right leg, which resulted in the amputation of my leg above the knee. My parents were in their early 20s and I was their first child and the first grandchild on both sides of the family, all of whom lived in Clarkston.

Hospital bills were huge and the people of “old Clarkston” stepped up to help financially. They did fundraising that made a big difference for my family, and I have never forgotten that. (I have the photo and article that were in the Clarkston News!)

My brothers and I are always proud to say we are Clarkston High School grads. My youngest brother worked for Independence Township DPW all his career, my middle brother taught and coached in Clarkston his entire career and our parents were leaders in the beginning of Clarkston Athletic Boosters.

Our family home, built by our grandfather, still is in the family. Now our youngest son is on staff in the school district. While I have not lived in Clarkston since I beganmy teaching career years ago, I am only a few miles away, always consider Clarkston to be “my beginning home” and remain grateful for the gift given to my family a long time ago. I know this has helped shape me into the person I am, and on behalf of the generations who were so generous so long ago, please accept my huge thanks for being part of my life.

Go, Wolves! – Cathy Richardson Albery.

Thank you, Cathy. I know and respect both of the brothers you mentioned!

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Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Give your mom a hug, tell her you love her, even if she is in Heaven.

  don rush, don’t rush me, mother’s day