May Day

There is nothing like a fine Sunday morning to celebrate your mother. Although I normally go to church here in town, on Mother's Day I will drive up through the hills to the old Baptist church my mother attended. It's only a thirty minute drive, but after you cross over Harold's Peak, it feels awfully different. The hills are taller, the views shorter, the trees thicker, darker, filled with secrets in their shadows.

My mother's church was founded two hundred years ago by a strange group of Anabaptists, but its culture now is less Amish and more of the "normal" Baptist faith. Still, simplicity's rule governs the tiny chapel, which is tucked in a small grove of trees at the bottom of a mountain. There are four narrow windows on each side and one large, panoramic window above the pulpit. There was once talk about building a baptistery at the back of the church, but no one wanted to lose the window. I do not think they have baptised anyone in a decade, anyway.

I parked my car on the grass near the cemetery, where the buried only seem to have had a choice of six or seven surnames, based on the tombstones. Generations of families are here. I recognize Zeke, our postmaster, and say hello. He is walking with an older man I do not know.

"Goot morning!" Zeke called. We shook hands, and I said I was glad to make it on time, given the long drive.

The other man nodded towards the cemetery. "Doesn't pay to get in a hurry."

Inside, the service began with The Broadman Hymnal. Mrs. Crotts, who must now be well over 80 years old, still plays the mellow-sounding piano. Her hands are turning with arthritis. When the mothers enter the chapel, they all receive a white carnation. Pastor Clark, before he preaches, will recognize the oldest and youngest mothers. It is always entertaining to watch as a few of the older ladies will look around and quietly, among themselves, decide who is the oldest mother. Then that lady will stand, and Pastor Clark will deliver a basket of flowers to her.

This year, the winner of the oldest living mother basket was Mrs. Glenna Lynn Creedmore, who stated she would donate the flowers to last year's winner, Mrs. Creola, who was too old to come to church anymore. And then, to the applause of the congregation, she sat down in the choir.

That Sunday was about our mothers, but I wanted to tell you how good it was to watch the others in that congregation, how their eyes cast on wives and mothers, how the children hushed when all the mothers stood, how the younger girls looked up in quiet fascination, every mother a pillar of steady strength beside their seated families.

The most touching moment, though, is when Pastor Clark asks all the mothers to sit back down except for those who have lost a child to death. This year there are four women left standing. The pastor will let pass a breathless moment as these four women stand in quiet dignity, the grief they bore so privately suddenly at the forefront of all our minds, and then Mrs. Crotts will play a few bars of a hymn, and instinctively we all rise, all of us, friends and strangers, families and friends, mothers and grandmothers and sisters and daughters, happy and grieving, women and men together, and sing:

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
the melodious songs of the blest,
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

In the sweet by and by,
we shall meet on that beautiful shore,
in the sweet by and by,
we shall meet on that beautiful shore.