Mother's Day

I figure everyone with a pulse, or an approximation, is waxing poetic today in honor of Mother's Day, as well we should. My mom wrangled six of us to adulthood, the last three for a significant distance without her partner of (at that time) nearly thirty years.

She, Franz, and Anni Schubert, Sigrid's parents, got along wonderfully well the only time they ever met long ago, even though they shared not a single syllable of a common language. Sigrid's mom was a Rubble Woman upon whose back the Federal Republic of Germany became the economic engine of Europe in the decade after World War II. Anni's husband passed decades before she did. The two women took no shit from anybody and raised children who are the same way.

My sisters, Evan, Kara, and Jill, are accomplished, masterful, and successful. They take care of their own families with the same devotion and the same discipline (no feet on tables, no glasses without coasters) as their mother did. Glenn, Russ (both now deceased), and Joe were fortunate to have them in their lives and smart enough to know it.

My two brothers, Kelly and Adam, and I are married to women, Linda, Margaret, and Sigrid, whose Moms raised them to give their husbands the confidence to go out into the world and try to reinvent it in our own image. When we come home at the end of each day, sometimes defeated but always undaunted, they convince us we can begin again on the morrow because of their love and support. 

This year has special significance in our house, as Michelle, our daughter, and her husband, Kyle, are awaiting the birth of their first child later this summer (Oma and Opa are pretty psyched about all this, as you can imagine). 

Enough syrupy sweet sentiments, before you think I've gone soft, I'm invoking the deathless words of Ray Wylie Hubbard to close. Love ya, Mom(s), all of you.

-bill kenny