WELL SERVED

Every morning, grace was set before me on a plate - hot, poached and buttered.

While I struggled to perfect my feathered bangs in the upstairs bath, Mom was downstairs expertly cracking eggs over boiling water seasoned with a splash of vinegar and a pinch of salt. When the bubbles threatened to spill over onto the glowing coils, she adjusted the knob with one hand and stifled a yawn with the other.

I suppose if Mom had been given a choice, she would have kept her weary head on the pillow just a few minutes longer, but her determined love would hear of no such thing. 

Its alarm went off in her heart, long before the one beside her head. She rose to greet the day with one humble purpose: to pour everything she was into every empty part of me.

I rounded the corner into the warm glow of the kitchen and took my seat at the counter - like a paying customer waiting to be served. If she felt any hint of my teenage ingratitude, she never showed it. Instead, she gently pushed her love toward me with an expectant smile.

I dismissed any chance of conversation with a downward glance, feeling the hunger of the unsaid things between us as they slowly devoured us both. 

Still, she didn’t leave. She stood there in her bathrobe and observed me over the rim of her cup. When the yolk ran from my fork, dribbled onto my chin, her arm extended mercy with a napkin before I realized my need.

After a few more bites and gulps, I was on my way out into a world that no longer included her. Yet she remained there on duty, long after her shift was over, scooping the crumbs I left her into a tender hand.

Looking back, I cannot count the dozens of shells cracked or napkins crumpled in that familiar place; but I know it was enough to fill a soul for the rest of her days.

Perhaps that’s why on Mother’s Day, my heart rejects the elaborate brunch specials that promise to delight and flips the menu over to find the simple things that are always there, the kind my momma served.

But by God's grace I am what I am, and the grace that He gave me was not without effect. 

1 Corinthians 15:10 GNT