While Sunday will be celebrated as Mothers Day here in Cherokee County and around most of the world, it will celebrated more as a virtual celebration this year due to the closing of so many shops heavily dependent of Mothers Day, the card shops, flower shops and gift shops, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This Sunday may be a Mothers Day where the words I Love You Mom may be the greatest gift you can give your mother, all via phones, virtual computers etc. Hugs and kisses may have to be delayed until the pandemic is over and it will happen, soon.

In past columns I reviewed the history of Mothers Day and told about the day that my mother died. I shared that feeling of peace that came across Mothers face as she silently slipped from mortality into immortality. That was a picture I have never forgotten, that look of peace I saw on Mothers face as four children arrived to be with her as she slid into immortality.

Our mother-son relationship lasted for over 70 years with 30 of those years spent locating and recording family ancestral names in family history books. Her input was vital because she knew where every branch and twig fit on our family trees. Doing my family history helped me know my mothers for generations back. Vicariously I walked with them as they boarded small sailing vessels in the early 1800s in Scotland, Ireland and Germany. And vicariously I helped them load supplies on board to last until they could settle in a new and yet untamed world.

Once in Canada I walked with them through the forests. I hovered with them around their open fires that kept the wolves at bay. And I cooked with them over open fires until their men folk could build a lean-to or a small log cabin. One mother tells of using a blanket hung over a doorway to separate her family from the wolves who hungrily howled only a short distance away.

Another letter tells of a great-great grandmother walking across the mud flats of Toronto in the dead of winter. It tells how she carried her 2-year-old daughter wrapped in her arms and of her sitting on logs crying, not wanting to go on. But with her husbands help they arrived at their destination and built their new life in the wilderness. These mothers were strong women. While most lived to become mothers of large families a few died in childbirth, alone in the wilderness, with others living to be 100 surrounded by strong family members.

Researching my family history is how I learned that each generation has its own cross to bear. It is easy for our generation to think our ancestors cross was heavier to bear than our cross is today. Yes, they had their howling wolves that could kill the body, but our generation is dealing with equally deadly wolves: drugs and pornography, the wolves that destroy the soul. Their generation built nations with faith in God. Our generation is working hard to get rid of God. I hope this never happens because wolves and drugs are even more deadly in a Godless world.

Most of us elderly often wonder what lies ahead for our grandchildren and great grandchildren in todays very divided and confused world. One of my mentors once addressed this question by declaring the upcoming generations will have a good future. And Im grateful these reassuring words as I watch my grandchildren raise our great-grandchildren, children born to mothers and fathers who know the power and purpose of God, and teach them about Gods great Plan of Happiness, as did my ancestral mothers, straight from Gods scriptures.

My ancestral mothers didnt have the material things we have today, but they had something our generation seems to be losing faith in a living God. They lived and died with faith, building nations on the principles of Gods laws they found in their studies of their scriptures.

My Mother, as has my wife Joan, bore their motherly burdens quietly. They taught, they nurtured, they loved, and they cared for their families. And the fruits of their labor are apparent today God centered families. How fortunate are those who are born to mothers who know God and pass this heritage onto their children. And it was mom who introduced me to my favorite poem, The Touch of the Masters Hand.

I continue to love you Mom, as do all your posterity.

Happy Mothers Day Mom and to moms all around the world!

Donald Conkey is a retired agricultural economist who lives in Woodstock.

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DONALD CONKEY: Thankful for mothers through the generations - Cherokee Tribune Ledger News