Mother
Quotes - She was my shelter and my storm
“Authority
is just and faithful in all matters of promise-keeping; it is also considerate,
and that is why a good mother is the best home-ruler.”
―
Charlotte Mason
“A
dim antagonism gathered force within him and darkened his mind as a cloud
against her disloyalty: and when it passed, cloudlike, leaving his mind serene
and dutiful towards her again, he was made aware dimly and without regret of a
first noiseless sundering of their lives.”
―
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“The
sound of thunder awake me, and when I got up, my feet sank into muddy water up
to my ankles. Mother took Buster and Helen to high ground to pray, but I stayed
behind with Apache and Lupe. We barricaded the door with the rug and started
bailing water out the window. Mother came back and begged us to go pray with
her on the hilltop.
"To
heck with praying!" I shouted. "Bail, dammit, bail!"
Mom
look mortified. I could tell she thought I'd probably doomed us all with my
blasphemy, and I was a little shocked at it myself, but with the water rising
so fast, the situation was dire. We had lit the kerosene lamp, and we could see
the walls of the dugout were beginning to sag inward. If Mom had pitched in and
helped, there was a chance we might have been able to save the dugout - not a
good chance, but a fighting chance. Apache and Lupe and I couldn't do it on our
own, though, and when the ceiling started to cave, we grabbed Mom's walnut
headboard and pulled it through the door just as the dugout collapsed in on
itself, burying everything.
Afterward,
I was pretty aggravated with Mom. She kept saying that the flood was God's will
and we had to submit to it. But I didn't see things that way. Submitting seemed
to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail - the gumption
to try to save ourselves - isn't that what he wanted us to do?”
―
Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
“Dad
was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account
of having a gimp leg. When he saw, he let out a yelp of delight and started
hobbling down the steps towards us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank
down on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to
the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood.
It
was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying.
"You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel," she said.
"And thank me, too."
Helen
and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there
looking at them. The way I saw it. I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom
and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the
three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arms around my shoulders.
"There
weren't no guardian angel, Dad," I said. I started explaining how I'd
gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places
when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long
night by quizzing them.
Dad
squeezed my shoulder. "Well, darling," he said, "maybe the angel
was you.”
―
Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
“A
person who has 'tidied up' has both the words and a tidy area to show for it.
It is much harder to find a word that describes the giving-up-things mode of
attention a mother is giving to her baby.”
―
Naomi Stadlen, What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing
“Laborsaving
devices do not necessarily save time, but they increase our expectactations of
what mothers should accomplish”
―
Kathleen A. Kendall-Tackett, The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood: Coping with
Stress, Depression, and Burnout
“Sydney's
the kind of port that leaves a mark on a sailor," the old man mused.
"Really?"
Haakon said, wondering what the man meant.
"It
did on me," he said, opening up his shirt to display his chest. It was
covered with tattoos! At the top, SYDNEY was printed in elaborate red and blue
letters. Beneath that was an enticing selection of names and dates.
"Mary,
1838...Adella, 1840..." The old sailor began laughing. "Beatrice,
1843...Helen, 1846." And then finally, "Mother." There was no
date after "Mother."
"Mothers
you love forever," he said. Everybody laughed then, including Haakon,
though the thought brought some sadness to his heart. He did love his mother
forever, and he missed her as well.”
―
Bonnie Bryant Hiller, Walt Disney Pictures Presents Shipwrecked
“After
Nicholas hung up the phone, he watched his mother carry buckets and garden
tools across the couch grass toward a bed that would, come spring, be brightly
ablaze as tropical coral with colorful arctotis, impatiens, and petunias.
Katherine dug with hard chopping strokes, pulling out wandering jew and oxalis,
tossing the uprooted weeds into a black pot beside her.
The
garden will be beautiful, he thought. But how do the weeds feel about it?
Sacrifices must be made.”
―
Stephen M. Irwin, The Dead Path
“She
was my shelter and my storm.”
―
Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me
“well,
I haven't heard from you since you went to pick up the treadmill so I am
assuming some big, burly, longshoreman has absconded with you and I'll never
see you again. And you didn't even get to run on your treadmill!”
―
Debbie Grant
“We
all make mistakes. But we never stop loving each other. That’s what family is
for. Everyone messes up.”
“I
don’t,” I said—quickly. I could’ve left it at that. Let this go. Like it really
was as simple as one stupid decision and not that I was a bad bet, myself. But
I didn’t. Because for the first time in my life I was ready to let her see me.
Really, see me. My walls came down. “I don’t.” I bit my lip. “Not when it comes
to helping our family. I can’t. I can’t make mistakes. I—I can’t. I have to be
here. To fill in the gaps. To fix things. I don’t get to fuck things up. I
protect us. I provide. That’s my job.”
“Oh,
sweetie.” Mom cupped my face in her palms. [...]“No one asked you to do that.”
“You
didn’t have to.”
“I
know.” She swallowed, her eyes shining. I hadn’t meant to make her cry, but
hell. I was tired of lying, of hiding. “I wasn’t a good mom to you.”
“Yes
you were—” I interrupted quickly.
“No,
I wasn’t.” She laughed and the sound was wet. “I did my best. You know I did.
But you deserved better. Maybe if I’d been a better mom, you would’ve learned
that when things go to shit, other people are there to help. You wouldn’t be so
hard on yourself. Maybe if I hadn’t failed so much myself, it would’ve left
room for you to.” She stroked her thumbs over my cheeks and looked at me—really
looked at me. I looked back. She was so familiar, and yet so different.
[....]“I can’t be a totally horrible mom though. Not when somehow, despite
everything I put you through, you still ended up perfect.”
―
Fae Quin, Possess Me! - I Want You To
“The
odour of ambergris is difficult to define. You belittle it by dismissing it so
easily. It is defined as musty and reminiscent of the sea; it is sometimes
called the ‘mother of all fragrances’. Ambergris is like a mother, although
incredible by herself, she delights in her offspring’s qualities. As an
additive, ambergris brings out the best in perfumes and makes a fragrance
linger. A house without a mother is insubstantial; so it is that perfumes and
certain medicines just do not hold together without ambergris.”
―
Shabbeer Ahmed, Djinns & Kings: The Curse of Zoa
“But
is it godly to punish your subjects for questioning you? Is it motherly to
demand resolute devotion?”
―
Rachel Gillig, The Knight and the Moth
“[...]
But sometimes love is poison, and it drips in our ears until our blood runs
with it.”
“Bring
pain,”he said again, suddenly insistent. “You. Pack. Everyone. I go, he stays
away.”
“Do
you want to go?”
[...]
He
said, “Thump, thump, thump.”
“What’s
that?”
“Heart,”
he said. “Carter’s heart.”
“You
hear it.”
“Yes.”
“It
speaks to you.”
“Yes.”
“What
does it say?” He looked stricken. “Gavin, Gavin, Gavin. Not poison.” And then
he went to her, his head bowed. He pressed it against her chest, his arms
hanging at his sides. He breathed heavily and shuddered when my mother reached
up and put her hands in his hair.
“There
you are,” she whispered to him. “Hello, hello. You’re home. So, no. No, Gavin.
You aren’t to go away again. We are stronger together than we ever are apart,
and this is where you belong.”
―
T.J. Klune, Brothersong
