A POEM AND STORY FOR MOTHER’S DAY

May 8, 2021

Note to readers: During these difficult days for many people, Clare and I have been considering what we might do to help those in need. We have decided to continue our support for the charitable nonprofit organizations that are serving our community. Each week in this space, I will ask you to consider helping one charity. This week, please volunteer or donate, as you are able, to Angels Charge Ministry, which helps women transition from incarceration to a new way of life. Angels Charge Ministry, 95 Ashley Street, Spartanburg, South Carolina 29307, (864) 529-5472.

My mother loved to read, and she enjoyed stories and poetry. Four years after Mama’s death in 2001, I heard, for the first time, a poem by Billy Collins.

Billy Collins was born in New York City on March 22, 1941. He served as United States Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 and as the New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. His other honors and awards include the Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

The poem reminded me of my mother. At the time, I wished I had been able to share it with her before her death. These lines brought to mind the Mother’s Day I literally spent my last dime to give Mama a ten-cent packet of sewing needles. And I recalled the Mother’s Day she received a pair of baseball shoes exactly my size.

The truth is we can never out-give our mother.

Here is the poem.

The Lanyard

By Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

“The Lanyard” from The Trouble With Poetry: and Other Poems by Billy Collins,

On this Mother’s Day, I share a story about my mother.

During the Civil War, Zachary Taylor Hutson fought in the Wilderness Campaign with Robert E. Lee. When the War of Northern Aggression ended, Z.T. Hutson was mustered out of the Confederate Army. He took a train south to Spartanburg. From there, he walked all the way to his family farm in Barnwell County. He made the 130-mile journey, hobbling on a wounded leg and suffering from tuberculosis. The trek took a whole week.

In time, Z.T. and his wife, Simpie, had two sons, Willie and Joe. Willie eventually took responsibility for the farm. He served as a representative from Barnwell County to the State Legislature. Joe, the younger son, left Barnwell County and moved to the Upstate, where he attended Getsinger Business School. There he met Belle Haynsworth from Darlington.

After their marriage, Joe and Belle lived in Spartanburg. They were the parents of five sons and one daughter. Joe changed the spelling of his name from Hutson to Hudson.

After his first wife died, Willie married Mollie Woodward. Her father was Robert E. Lee Woodward. Willie gained a stepdaughter from Mollie’s first marriage. Willie and Mollie had four sons and then a daughter, Louise.

When little Louise was only six weeks old, her mother, Mollie, died.

Joe and Belle traveled from Spartanburg to Barnwell County for the funeral. Following the burial in the cemetery of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Willie handed his infant daughter across Mollie’s grave to his sister-in-law, Belle.

Willie said to Joe and Belle, “I don’t b’lieve I can raise this little girl on a farm with these four boys. I’d like for you to take her with you to Spartanburg. I’d ‘preciate it if you’d rear her as your own.”

That baby girl was my mother. Her aunt and uncle adopted her. Because her adopted parents and her birth father were so closely related, she always regarded both families as hers. In essence, she was the youngest of twelve children in the two families combined. She had a good relationship with all of these older brothers and sisters from both families throughout her life. She thought of both Willie and Joe as her daddies, calling them Little Daddy and Big Daddy.

I knew my grandmother, Belle Hudson, as Granny. In her Last Will and Testament, Granny included these words, “And to my niece Louise, whom I have always regarded as my daughter, my desire is that she share and share alike with my other children.”

My mother wept tears of joy.

Granny’s estate was very modest. Her love for her family was extravagant.

My mother’s inheritance was not wealth. It was acceptance and a sense of belonging.

In October 2011, Clare and I became grandparents of two precious children, adopted by our son and daughter-in-law. These two children are counted among our thirteen grandchildren. We love and cherish all thirteen of our grands. Each is a unique individual; each is created in the image of God, and each one is a blessing in our lives.

In family court on adoption day, I saw a group of caring adults gathered around these children. There were smiles all around. The judge was all business until the legal proceedings were concluded. Then he posed for photographs along with adoptive parents and two sets of grandparents. Because it was October, he offered our new grandchildren their first trick-or-treat gift, a Tootsie Pop.

When I shook the judge’s hand to thank him, he commented, “In family court, I hear many sad, even tragic, stories. A case like this where two children are placed in their forever family brings me joy. This makes my work worthwhile.”

In our family, we regard adoption as a blessing, but it is not that way for some. At http://www.adoption.com, there are numerous stories of people for whom being adopted has been a painful experience. Nearly every person who has been adopted has questions about their birth parents. Many know that their adoptive parents have loved them and provided for them in ways that their birth parents could not have. However, for some, adoption carries a lifelong stigma.

In the church that I served for eighteen years, we were fortunate to have several adoptive families. It has been my privilege to dedicate children who are chosen through adoption at birth. I have baptized young people who were foster children and were later adopted by their foster parents. Adoption is a blessing to the child, the parents, and the church.

Those, like my mother, who are adopted, have a special place in the world. In a very real sense, they are the chosen ones.

A list of famous people who were adopted includes people of diverse backgrounds and occupations. Moses, the biblical leader of the Jews, Lakota war chief Crazy Horse, and comedian Art Linkletter, are on the roll.

Among the politicians on the list are John Hancock and Nelson Mandela. Civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson were adopted.

The list includes inventor George Washington Carver, naturalist John Audubon, Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, and Steve Jobs of Apple computer.

Philosophers Aristotle and Jean Jacques Rousseau are included. Authors Edgar Allan Poe and Langston Hughes were adopted.

My mother knew, perhaps better than most, that all children are gifts from God. She knew that every child needs to be accepted and loved unconditionally. As the oldest of her eight children, I will never be able to thank her enough, not with sewing needles, baseball shoes, or even a lanyard.

The wisdom of Hebrew literature says of the virtuous woman, “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” (Proverbs 31:28)

On this Mother’s Day, I am grateful for my mother, for her faithfulness to God, and her unfailing love.

What a blessing!

Thanks, Mama! Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.

Kirk H. Neely is a freelance writer, a teacher, a pastoral counselor, and a retired pastor. He can be reached at kirkhneely44@gmail.com