In which I Help Meo Pay Homage To Meo's Lost Mother

This picture is of Meo's Mom and her two daughters, Meo and Sandy taken in 1949......

Meo had lost her mother. I knew this to be so, however, I was confused as to how one might loose something as so important as a mother. I was eventually to learn that lost could sometimes be defined as to die. Upon this understanding I was very saddened. In fact, though I had not been given the ability to shed tears, I could now understand how one might feel so low as to cry.
Therefore as what humans called Mother’s Day approached I could sense a bit of sadness in Meo’s mood. I found myself feeling somewhat sorry for Meo even though she herself is a mother and in fact her daughters have become mothers she still is drawn to remembering her mother on Mother’s day.
I am sure Meo has learned some of the more important things about life from her mother. I have come to know that Meo’s mother whose name was Marjorie was a fine quilter so the gift of sewing was probably a gift from her mother. So to was probably the gift of gab, or as Meo has interpreted it as to type, was given by her mother. For I have heard even Meo’s daughter say that Grandma Marge could certainly talk. I have also heard that she always had an opinion she would readily share even if you did not want to open your ears to her words. And so it goes, Meo, I understand, is much like her mother.

Hence, I am most certainly sure that Meo’s inclination to save and appreciate odd things is something she can attribute to her mother’s teaching. The following poem may have contributed to Meo’s way of thinking. It is, I have learned, a poem that her mother would often recite to her.

Bread and Milk
By Gene Stratton-Porter 1916

Every morning before we eat,
My mother prays a prayer sweet.
With folded hands and low-bowed head:
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
But I’d like tarts and ginger cakes,
Puffs and pie like grandmother makes.
So ‘smorning I said my appetite
Must have cake, or ‘twouldn’t eat a bite.
Then mother said; “fore you get through,
You’ll find just bread and milk will do.”
She always lets me think things out,
But I went to the yard to pout,
What I saw there—Upon my word!
I’m glad I’m a girl,-not a bird.
Redbreast pulled up a slick fishworm,
To feed her child; it ate the squirm.
Bee-bird came flying close to me,
And caught a stinging honey bee.
She pushed it down her young, alive.
She must have thought him a beehive.
Old Warbler searched the twigs for slugs,
Rose Grosbeak took potato bugs.
Missus Wren snapped up a spider
To feed her baby, close beside her.
Little Kingbirds began to squall,
Their mother hurried at their call.
She choked them with dusty millers.
Cuckoos ate hairy caterpillars.
Blue birds had worms, where I could see,
For breakfast in their hollow tree.
Then little Heron made me squeal,
Beside our lake he ate an eel.
When young Screech Owl gulped a whole mouse,
I started fast for our nice house.
Right over me—for pit-tee sake,
Home few a hawk, with a big snake!
So ‘fore my tummy got awful sick
I ran and kissed my mother quick.
I acted just as fine as silk
And asked polite for bread and milk.

HAPPY MOHTER’S DAY TO ALL!