Mothering

My women's bible study this week talked about how all women were created to mother...whether or not you ever give birth to a child. Women mother our friends and our siblings, our co-workers and our husbands (unfortunately! ha). And we mother other people's children. This got me thinking about some of the women in my life who mothered me, even though their own children were grown and gone, and my own mother was doing a fine job. Still these women took time to touch my life.
There was Gracie Farris, who gave me recipes to put into my recipe box for a girl's club project. Her Fresh Apple Pie is still the best thing I've ever tasted. She was small and old and bent with white curly hair, and she made me feel tall. She bought me my first training bra. She brought it to me one day, out of the blue, all wrapped up in pretty paper. I can't imagine what she was thinking (as I have never been "blessed" in that department), but I felt SO grown up.
And there was Mildred Laws, who often babysat my sister and I when our parents had to go out of town overnight. She would come stay at our house, and we would all pile into mom and dad's bed. She was large and soft, with wrinkled papery skin, and a magical ability to wake up at whatever time she thought about before she went to sleep. We would make her wake us up at 4:00am, just because we thought it was so neat that she didn't need an alarm clock. And we would be ready for school so early that we'd have to walk around the block a couple of times. Now that I'm grown up, I realize that she had some hard knocks in her life...but she always seemed at peace to me. She was never in a hurry.
Both of these women are in heaven now. And I don't know if they ever knew how much they impacted my life. I just hope there are little girls and little boys around here who will someday grow up and think fondly of me.
Who are you mothering?
And who mothered you?