Momday

Today is the 12th of December, a day that I have always struggled to remember. I have a terrible memory, as anyone in my family or close circles will attest, and as a kid I had a terrible time figuring out the 2nd, the 12th, and the 25th, one being Christmas, one being Heather’s birthday, and one being my mom’s birthday.

Thankfully, at some point I did finally get it figured out; so while I sometimes have trouble remembering what day of the week it currently is, what year it is, and how old I am, at least I can say with confidence: today is Mom’s birthday.

Though things have been rough over these last few years, I’ve been continually blessed in my life. I’ve known many great people, and been supported by most of them in one way or another. As undeserving as I have so often been, and as much as I have wasted opportunities and taken those great people for granted, God has still kept me afloat in these murky waters, and largely through the people I’ve been allowed to cling to. Chief among them is my mother.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good relationship with their parents, or to have parents who go out of their way to be available to them. I was lucky on both counts. Martin O. Riser, my father, who has been dead now for the better part of a decade, made up for not always being available by being an exceptional person. He wasn’t just a good man, he was a paragon of inspiration. His life is in mine, and I will carry him in my heart until the day I die. And where his skills as a parent were lacking, my mother was always there to carry us, and she carried our family on more than a few occasions. She was and is an anchor to me in a world where I have always been adrift, and without her I have not the slightest doubt of where my own energies would have taken me. Perhaps I cannot be so blessed as to call myself a success based upon her many consolations and interventions in my life, but compared to what might have been, I am far less a failure.

So on this Monday, December 12th, I stop to offer thankfulness for my mother, without whose resourcefulness I would long ago have been gently lost in the folds of the earth. Here’s to you, Mom. Thanks for being a breeze when I needed to push on, an anchor when I needed to stop, and a lifeboat when each of my ships decided finally to sink. Happy birthday! I hope and pray that you’ll be there for the maiden voyages of my every new endeavor, and those of your daughter and your grandchildren, for many years to come.