Another Mother’s Day is upon us, a time to bask in the love of your offspring and/or to honor your Mom and make her feel special.
As most of you know, I lost my mom in 2010, but not a day goes by without thinking of her.
On the heels of last week’s Wordless Wednesday and the creative rainbow chalk art, I have more chalk art offerings for you to ooh and aah over.
For many years, my daily walk took me through various neighborhoods. My route to/from Council Point Park was a two-mile round trip and I only swapped out walking for driving that short distance when the mechanic said “Linda, you must drive this car more or it will develop electrical issues!” So I complied even though I thought it was kinda cool to tally up more miles on two feet than on four tires.
But despite this warning, occasionally I still do my morning meander on foot to my favorite nature nook and such was the case last year, on May 15, 2023, the day after Mother’s Day.
Along my route I pass a church and the volunteer gardener there is a member of the parish. This time of year she is always out tending to the garden, so on occasion I stop and chat with her. On that Spring morning, however, instead of feasting on the usual eye candy of colorful blooms and flowering trees, my eyes focused on the cement walkway to the church which was covered in chalk art honoring mom. Lucky for me, the artwork had not been smeared by footprints or doused by rain.
Any and all chalk art I see on my walks is a treat and I am quick to capture a picture of it, so I reached for the camera in my pocket and decided these images would be featured in my Mother’s Day 2024 post.
Steppin’ back in time for a quick minute ….
When I was a kid, creative drawing with chalk was not a “thing” that I can recall. I didn’t have a chalkboard easel at home, so likely the only connection to chalk was at grade school when every morning after we sang “God Save the Queen” the teacher would select a student to clear the blackboard of the previous day’s lessons, then open the window and clap that chalkboard eraser against the brick wall to free the chalk dust.
I remember creating greeting cards for Mother’s Day in grade school using construction paper, mucilage glue and crayons, then after the grand presentation at home, along with a hug and a kiss, my artwork was displayed for a few days.
As an only child, I was always very close to my mom.
With the advent of electronic greetings, I wonder if sending a Hallmark card is as important today as it once was? There was/is even a phrase called a “Hallmark moment” which all the online dictionaries identify as “a memorable moment or event, one which would make a poignant greeting card.”
After I began buying a greeting card for my mom, thus forsaking my sweet and simple artwork, those Hallmark Mother’s Day cards I purchased got a little more elaborate every year. Most were steeped in sentiment, beribboned and often on parchment paper, always prominently displayed on the kitchen corner cabinet for about a week’s time.
So where did those pretty cards end up?
Mom kept those cards in a folder in her room. But as the years went on, that folder grew because all her meaningful birthday cards were also stashed in the same folder.
I’m sure I am not the only person who bought a card and signed it with a pet’s name. Those greeting cards, made to look like a child picked them, were added to Mom’s card collection, as were a few cards that said “To Mommy from Sugar” or a few cute teddy bear greeting cards which I signed “To Mommy … Love, The Bears” and I liked those vintage teddy bear cards or Boyds Bears cards best.
Eventually Mom’s card collection folder was bursting at the seams, so she used a paper gift bag to contain them all and, it was then I decided to put all MY cards from Mom, similarly tucked away for safekeeping, into Mom’s bag.
A few weeks ago I opened that gift bag, which contained about 75 greeting cards, each dated the year it was given and going back several decades – what a treasure trove of memories!
There were too many to get into one photo, so I grouped the Mother’s Day cards I liked most together.
Also embedded in that card stash were a few vintage cards from a long-gone great uncle who opened an antiques store in Vancouver, British Columbia and sometimes sent Mom and me unique vintage cards, a few which I photographed to use sometime in my blog. (You may recall the little girl with her dog I used in my recent pets-through-the-years post – that was a card from Joe.)
So I spent a delightful afternoon going through that bag of greeting cards to select some for this post. There were both smiles and tears as I read those sentiments. Though I am striving mightily to clear my house of clutter, I know the gift bag spilling over with cards and cherished memories will be tucked away forever.
I hope to be joining Terri Webster Schrandt’s Monthly Color Challenge: Cobalt Blue but with an asterisk as I have no cobalt blue images from my excursions and even a perfect, cloudless sky could not possibly achieve cobalt blue hues. However, I photographed the greeting cards against a cobalt blue dress – will that suffice Terri?
Mom might approve of that cobalt blue background as blue was her favorite color and, just like the song “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Girl?)”, she was short in stature at five foot two, with very blue eyes and a big heart.
“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.” ~Anonymous
Happy Mother’s Day to those who celebrate!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 