Butch Recalls “The Mother Watch”…

   One of my regular patrons, a lady who I have known most of my life, passed away last week. She was in her 90’s and had been having health problems for some time. She has always liked to read, but after her children left home and her husband passed away, she began reading more each evening to pass the time. On each visit to the library, the lady talked about her four children and kept me up-to-date on their lives. Like most mothers, she was a “worrier,” always concerned about her kids’ jobs, health, safety, problems, etc. Her death brought to mind the following poem by Edgar Guest…

  “She never closed her eyes in sleep till we were all in bed; On party nights till we came home she often sat and read. We little thought about it then, when we were young and gay, How much the mother worried when we children were away. We only knew she never slept when we were out at night, And that she waited just to know that we’d come home alright.

   “Why, sometimes when we’d stayed away till one or two or three, It seemed to us that mother heard the turning of the key; For always when we stepped inside she’d call and we’d reply, But we were all too young back then to understand just why. Until the last one had returned she always kept a light, For mother couldn’t sleep until she’d kissed us all good night.

   “She had to know that we were safe before she went to rest; She seemed to fear the world might harm the ones she loved the best. And once she said ‘When you are grown to women and to men, Perhaps I’ll sleep the whole night through; I may be different then.’ And so it seemed that night and day we knew a mother’s care–That always when we got back home we’d find her waiting there.

   “Then came the night that we were called to gather round her bed; ‘The children are all with you now,’ the kindly doctor said. And in her eyes there gleamed again the old-time tender light, That told she had been waiting just to know we were all right. She smiled the old familiar smile, and prayed to God to keep…Us safe from harm throughout the years…and then she went to sleep.”

    My mother was like that, too. She had a stroke at age 74, and was in a nursing home for four years until she passed away. Each time that I visited her, Mom always wanted to know how everyone…myself and my four siblings and our families, were getting along. She wanted to be assured that we were all right. My wife is also a worrier. She can’t sleep until she knows that our four kids and their families are okay.

   I would bet that your mother is the same way. That’s why they are so special…..

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 36 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.