Mater Dolorosa

Mater Dolorosa

This taffy tastes like coconut, Mama.

Did you put coconut in it?

– Coconut nothing.

– Did you have a big party when you got married?

– Sure. Huge.

– What was it like?

– Nothing. We just got married.

– That’s all?

– Yup, that’s it.

One time we went on a picnic.

She made meatballs for us to put on bread.

I remember the curve of the river and sitting on the sand.

It was Sunday, she wasn’t exhausted,

she patiently answered all my questions.

If heaven is simply that, it will be perfect.*

Adelia Prado captures the painful, simple wonder of being a mother. Every good mother is an image of the Mother of God, Mary, the Mother of Sorrows. Carrying and having children is labor about which I cannot say anything other than “Thank you.”

Prado can do better than I, she captures the truth that some labors are both hard and mystical. The act of mothering in this poem is not given glorious metaphysical words, but becomes metaphysical nonetheless. The enduring love of a mother makes the simplest day, spent with a child, a foretaste of paradise.

Once we were out of food, but there was enough in the couch and in the cracks of the car cushions (kids’ hands are good at searching such nooks!) to buy some bread. We had onions, and Miracle Whip. Mom fried the onions and we had delicious sandwiches on the floor, because, she explained, this was cowboy food. Given my love of cowboys, the meal was sold, tasty, and only years later did I understand Mom was making do.

We were having glorious times as far as I knew. My wife shares this trait and once, when a real estate venture had gone awry, she suggested living someplace else as a grand adventure. Times were hard, but Hope ceased to talk about hard times and began to speak about possibilities. She made dinner, talked to some college students, and changed a diaper.

The one thing that is certain is the pain that comes with motherhood now that creation is broken. Children grow up, even those who do right do not do perfectly. A mother feels pain with each misstep. Other mother’s sons and daughters also cause pain and these stabs also hurt a mother. Mary was the mother of the son of God, He never disappointed her. Still, other people killed Him and a sword pierced her heart.

That’s big talk. Mostly, motherhood, as we experience it, is taffy that tastes like coconut, stories of a marriage, hard work, days when weariness vanished for a moment. A good day with a mother is a foretaste of Paradise, because another Mother is the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church. All of us, male and female, can participate in the Church. We can be the bride of Christ that has many children. We can be part of the Mother, the Orthodox Church, that endures even when clerics fail, church members stumble, and all seems cold and dead.

Our Mother the church endures. This is easier to see if, like I have had, one has a godly mother and a good lady wife. One sees motherhood done correctly and so can get a glimpse of the motherhood that was, is, and will come.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, Hope, and Church!

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Prado, Adélia. The Mystical Rose: Selected Poems . Bloodaxe Books. Kindle Edition.