A Mother's Love

Happy Mother’s Day

When we come back to Sikeston, Missouri, Larry’s hometown, I know to clear my agenda.  Larry’s favorite thing is to sit outside his cousin Don’s barn and watch the distant traffic on the interstate.  

It’s also a place to reconnect to his roots.  About five years ago Larry and Don learned they were cousins by marriage.  Apparently all the adults knew, but these two guys who had been tight since first grade never had a clue.

Don’s mother, Pauline, is 86 years old and as fiesty today as she was in her youth.  Just mention her name and Larry and Don stand up a little straighter and say, “Yes Ma’am” to no one in particular.  Pauline has all the answers to the hidden secrets of Sikeston, Missouri.  This trip, Larry decided it was time to ask about his own history. It was time to unlock the secrets to his past.  

Before Pauline began her story, she asked Larry, “Are you sure you want to hear it?”  

“Yes,” he said.  “It’s time.”

It seems Pauline’s daddy was a mean man named Jack.  He had a wife and five children, whom he treated miserably.  After his wife died on Christmas day in 1932, his children, including Pauline, began to scatter--some left home as young as 12 years old.  Old Jack apparently didn’t like life on his own so he found himself a new wife. A woman with a young daughter named Gloria.  Apparently Gloria had a terrible childhood even before she went to live at Jack’s house.  Her family tree included a grandfather who was a bootlegger and another relative who was an arsonist-for-hire. Her own mother, coincidentally, died some years later, also on Christmas day.  

In the early 50’s when Gloria came back to Sikeston with a toddler son and an infant, no one was overly surprised that she seemed incapable of parenting them.  The people of Sikeston did what communities did before social welfare picked up the pieces.  They volunteered to take care of these two little ones.  Tony, the toddler went to stay with a family with a rowdy pack of boys.  The infant, Larry, was left in the care of a woman named Bonnie.

Bonnie was a widow with a twelve year old son.  Her husband was killed in Anzio, Italy, during World War II.  She worked as a waitress making minimum wage and tips and she picked cotton on the family farm.  Money was tight.  Those who knew Bonnie said she had a big heart and loved children.  Her nieces said they loved to spend summers with her because she let them try on her make up.  She was petite and pretty and a great cook by all accounts. 

We don’t know at what point Bonnie realized the little baby she was caring for would become her second son.  We do know that she and her son, Johnny, showered the baby Larry with the love, tenderness, and affection that he had never before received.  

Gloria left town and abandoned her babies.  In time, her sons were adopted by two different families.  Larry found out he was adopted in the 4th grade when he had to take his birth certificate in to register for Little League.  The names on the certificate were unfamiliar to him.  Bonnie never talked about it.  Larry was her son until the day she died.  She did a fine job raising her sons.  Both went to college.  Both have had successful adult lives.  She built a foundation that let Larry dream big and she taught him how to achieve his goals through hard work.  

I never had the privilege of meeting Larry’s mother, but it doesn’t take much imagination to know this was a woman with a strong faith and a giving spirit.  Her selfless act of making room in her heart for one more changed more lives than she could ever know.