Mothers Day Five

The lady in the picture is my mother. The picture was taken sometime in the early 90s. How time flies.

My sisters and I have never truly appreciated the meaning of Mother's Day until five years ago. I'll leave you to fill in the blanks. And now a poem.

The early morning wake up calls
The nicely packed fresh lunch
The Honey Bumbles cereal
With milk that caused a crunch

The drive to the beach kindergarten
The drive back to the school
Leaping out the steel blue van
Which we always thought was cool

While we made our way through math
And english, tech and art
The house was empty, of course bar one
And then you'd make a start

The windows could never sparkle
The sheets were never white
Unless you were behind it
From day through to the night

At three you would be back again
And we'd meet you there
At the senior rooms, and kids would come
For the After School Care

There'd be a batch of muffins
Or hot, crunchy, fried Taties
Each kid would go home with a smile
And surely empty plate(y)s

Then some nights we'd go out for treats
Usually ice cream
And lay back by the housefire
And then we'd start to dream

That this could be forever
And you'd see us succeed
And you could come and visit us
Without the need to plead

But that dream ended way too soon
And we never got to see
The way you'd react when you found out
We had our own family

There's no more early morning wake up calls

No nicely packed fresh lunch

No Honey Bumbles cereal

With milk that caused a crunch

No drives to the beach kindergarten

No drives back to the school

No leaping out the steel blue van

Which we always thought was cool

You'd think we moved on

Because five years have passed

But that's not true, though times have changed

We'd fly flags at half mast

So every year, or every so often

We move to our own space

Me and my sisters still miss you

And want to see your face

So with all the minscule memories

Like filled up shopping carts

I found another picture

And made you Queen of Hearts

We'll remember Ohakuri

Or the 'greenstone' found down south

Or all the great things you did

They'll spread by word-of-mouth

We know we can't have you back

But still your spirit lives on

When people say, "That's just like her!"

We know you haven't gone.