Thinking about you, my Mama

Today, I’m thankful for my beautiful mama…

Bethel Farrington Myers

Bethel, House of God

All I saw were the loads of laundry and the nightly meal,

I had no idea how strong you had to be to silently offer love.

You carefully tended memories with a metal poker and a billow:

walks along the wet sandbar on ferry beach at sunset,

picnics spread in the orchard  beside full baskets of apples

four lit Advent candles and then sleeping bags in front of the fire Christmas Eve

Roasted hotdogs in the fireplace, a winter picnic,

When I had a bad day at school, you made afternoon tea in Great-Grandmother Pearl’s iridescent china:  navy blue ordinary on the outside, mother of pearl glazed interior,

when my small face was buried in the tea cup, a rainbow of colors shined back.

Your strength was daily fired in the round kiln taken down brick by brick in southern Ohio and rebuilt into a study on the east side of the house.  You and God would wait there and watch the sun rise on our life every morning.  You wept your prayers I would slip by you into the Master bathroom and see you knelt beside the blue couch, face buried in your arms.

Then after breakfast, you folded piles of prayers and dressed us in them,

covering us in God.

You still cover us in God and when you open the door of your heart

we too are ushered into His house.

Summer Gross