Richard L. Evans
The Spoken Word
13 May 1962

MOTHERS — AND THEIR NEED TO BE NEEDED

There comes to mind a gentle mingling of many thoughts on mothers, and it would be difficult to consider this subject without an. intermixing of tender emotion, as the words of William Goldsmith Brown remind us: “The sweetest sounds to mortals given Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.” There are times, early times and others, when a devoted, understanding mother is needed more than almost anything one might mention— a need so urgent and obvious as to make difficult the utterance of it.

And then the years pass, and for mothers there may come a great gap between feeling much needed and feeling needed little, or a little less, as Jean Ingelow’s words suggest: “To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch and then to lose, To see my bright ones disappear, Drawn up like morning dews.”

For mothers, as for others also, there is need to know that they are needed, long after the period of complete dependence has passed, long after tender nurturing and nourishing; long after the early years of youth— even to the later years of life— there is need to know that they are needed, for strength, for understanding, for counsel, for comfort— need for mothers waiting, watching, often worrying; mothers giving, doing, sharing, caring, and constantly encouraging.

A waiting mother is one of the great safeguards of life, and mothers need to know that they are needed, loved, wanted, appreciated, as a performer needs approval and applause. As wrote one writer of half a century since: “A woman can stand anything but being forgotten, not being needed. . . .”

Mothers bless, and are blessed, by being needed in the daily lives of loved ones. And so the years must endlessly remind us how much they do, or did; how much they mean, and meant— how much they now must mean. There is need for all of us to know, as families, how much we need each other always— for the family is forever.

And now to close may we recall these thoughtful quoted words from a thoughtful writer: “Where’s Mother?’ could be heard through the hallway. And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed after her. And they said: ‘We cannot see her, but she is with us still. A Mother like ours is more than a Memory. She is a Living Presence.’”