Every life has a beginning and middle. Will your grandchildren only remember the end?
His mother had just fixed his breakfast. It was eggs, homemade toast and apricot jam, a wonderful meal for a growing boy and Martin savored every bite.
Finishing his meal, he leaned back stretching his arms high above his head. Mid-stretch, one of his hands accidentally touched the decorative platter that hung on the wall behind him. The plate had a barnyard scene with a large rooster in the forefront, that his mother thought was a beautiful decoration for her kitchen. She had purchased it by the sweat of her brow working in the cotton field.
“When my hand bumped it, the dish fell to the floor and burst into pieces. I knew of its value to my mom, and so I dropped to my knees trying to gather the fragments. It was hopeless. The rooster plate was gone. In my tears, I began saying to my mother again and again how very, very sorry I was. Then taking me in her arms, she told me, ‘Oh Martin, it’s ok. We can always get another plate, but we can never get another you.’
Those words of love, acceptance, and consolation have remained with me throughout my life and have guided me in understanding the worth of a soul. My mother wanted nice things to adorn her home and make it a place of beauty, but things to her were never as important as human beings.
Footnote: On more than one occasion I have taken a child or person in my arms and said, ‘It’s ok, we can always get another truck, but we can never get another you.’ For some, it has been hard to understand or believe, but the perspective I learned from my mother has affected many more than me. At that moment she welded in me the value of one human life. It framed the way I have tried to treat my wife, child, and employee. It has cost tens of thousands of dollars, but things are just things and can be replaced, but the worth of a soul is beyond measure.”
A wise man once said that moral improvement occurs when the heart is warm when we come in contact with people we admire and love and unconsciously bend our lives to mimic theirs. The lessons from his parents of rooster plates and honoring women would stay with Martin for the rest of his life.
What made your mother laugh or cry?
Were your conversations warm and comfortable?
Every life has a beginning and middle. Will your grandchildren only remember the end?
