that’s life Feeling mothers’ heartaches

By Tammy Keith

LITTLE ROCK — On this Mother’s Day, my heart hurts for so many other mothers.

I have a wonderful, amazing mother. I have two boys who are healthy and have their futures ahead of them.

That’s why I cried when I read the obituary the other day of the 18-year-old girl who was supposed to have graduated two days ago. She was beautiful. She was going to be one of the leads in a school play this month, but she was killed in a car wreck. And that was it. The end of her dreams, and of her mother’s dreams for her.

I pictured it being my 18-year-old son. It’s every mother’s worst nightmare. I worried about something happening when my son drove off for prom this year. I prayed, just like I’ll bet that mother prayed and worried about her daughter. I’ve thought about that mother several times, and I know today will be hard for her.

I cried last week for another mother I’ve never met. The mother of the eighth-grade boy killed in the tornado with his dad. I interviewed some wonderful people for a tornado story that ran last week, including a sweet 14-year-old boy who knew the student who was killed.

We stood on the highway on a beautiful sunny afternoon, and as I talked to the boy, his father and I just shook our heads and talked about how sad it was.

The mother of the boy who was killed also has a 17-year-old son, who, as I write this, is in serious condition in a hospital. To go through your husband and son dying at the same time like that is just unbelievable. I picture her in the hospital room, trying to take care of this son, but her heart breaking for her husband and younger child. I can’t even imag-ine how hard that would be.

I can’t get yet another mother out of my mind, either, although her situation is different. A woman rear-ended my van on the Interstate 30 bridge the other day in the rain. We were stopped because there was another wreck, and she tried to go around me.

Without going into all the details, she was dressed in what looked like pajama shorts and was shaking like crazy. I felt sorry for her, and we shared an umbrella as we waited for the state trooper. She told me she was on her way to a methadone clinic. She got hooked on painkillers when she was 10, she told me.

She said her husband was going to be mad about the wreck, and she didn’t want him to have to get “my kids out in the rain.”

Oh, gosh. This woman, whose name and age (25) I didn’t know until I saw the accident report, makes me sad. I keep thinking about what her home life must be like, and I wonder about what kind of mother she is. The best she can be, probably.

I have a new friend who’s an attractive, fun person to be around. I asked her about her mother, and she told me stories about her life growing up.

Her mother didn’t show much love to her and her siblings, and she and her mother weren’t close. This woman has a daughter, and she said they are close, but she wishes they were closer.

I wish that for her. I wish I could make up for her mother. I wish she could have had a mother like mine.

But as a mother, I’ll tell her that I’m proud of the way she turned out.

And she should be, too.

Hug your mother - or somebody’s mother - and your children today.

Three Rivers, Pages 118, 120 on 05/11/2008