My Mother


The following is a letter I wrote to my mother over 20 years ago.

April 29, 2000


This letter should arrive on your 81st birthday—a time of rejoicing for a life well-lived. Emerging from the stable background of loving parents, a young woman, a talented pianist, and a fluent reader of Latin was pursued by a plethora of west St. Louis beaus. Then, in 1935, you met a bicycle delivery boy, in whom, despite his relatively low economic status, you saw something wonderful. His honesty and gentleness shone through beneath the rough exterior; you would marry him when you were just nineteen. A hard-working man who would be a devoted father—somehow you knew.

You courageously endured through an economic depression and a world war in which your husband was absent for two long years, forcing you to raise your first son without your husband. Your parents lived with you through the war and, as they prepared to leave at its conclusion, you and Ben told them they could stay with you for the rest of their lives. They had helped you during the war, and now you would care for them. They both would die in your home. In the post-war era, you gave birth to three more children, all of whom you showered with the deepest love and affection. With them you shared warmth and comfort—you were a mother to them all. Like a chameleon you changed to meet their differing needs, always putting others before yourself. 

Your firstborn was typical of firstborns, independent, and forceful like his father. He left home at an early age for college and went on to travel the world and settle far from home, where he became the head of his own household. Your daughter was more like you—gentle, nurturing, and cautious—an only daughter must have a special place in a mother’s heart. For your sickly third child, you shed more tears than you deserved. You nursed him back from the edge of death, and even now you play an indispensable role in his life. And your youngest was inspired by his father’s mandate to be inquisitive. This intellectual wanderlust caused much-unintended heartache, but he’s still the same young boy who talked of life’s search so long ago.

With your children raised, your husband’s love for you deepened, as did your love for him. The young boy on the bicycle—in whom you saw so much, more than fifty years ago—had aged. No longer did he participate in the virile games of youth. The arms that once hit baseballs long distances, the coordination that nestled many a wedge shot close to the hole, and the shoulders that carried large sides of beef—did so no longer. As Thorton Wilder said, he was being “weaned away” from life. But his love for you was deeper than any that emanates from youthful vigor alone.

As his own physical vitality faded, his main concern was Mary Jane Hurley, the beautiful young woman on whose door he had knock so long ago. In his eyes, that is who you still were. After fifty years of sleeping in the same bed, separated by war, struggling to make your payments, and watching children to whom you had cared for leave your loving home, after all that … you still had each other. A love so strong that those who have never experienced it could not or would not ever understand. Yet, tragically, it ended after just fifty years.  But be assured that when Ben’s very last breath was taken, it was your name on his lips, your face in his eyes, your presence in his heart. The wind still murmurs outside your window and its sound is his sound, calling you. 

For living this life, a well-lived one, one of joys and sorrows, triumphs and tragedies, you are revered. In the times since your husband was forced to leave—not of his own choice—you have endured and re-created yourself. While the body deteriorates, your spirit is still strong. You are the hero of your own life—my dearest mother.

With my deepest love and affection,
With my most gracious appreciation,

With yours and my father’s spirit always within me,
I remain, your devoted son, John Gerard

(Postscript – Mary Jane Hurley Messerly died of a stroke on Sunday, September 18, 2005. She was 86 years old. The day before she died she took her last walk, worked her last crossword puzzle, and listened to her last Cardinals baseball game.)