Mind is full of memories of mom

“Anything planned for Mothers’ Day?” I asked an old friend the other day.
He looked at me like I was crazy. At 93, he finds his mother a distant memory.
“I’ll try to set aside some time to think about mine,” I told him.
My mother — Sara Eleanor Haynes Ronald — died 22 years ago this month.
But I think of her often, as sons and daughters do.
She was born in Ohio in September of 1918 and was what was then referred to as “an illegitimate child born out of wedlock.” The language seems antiquated today, but the stigma was real at the time.
Who was her father? I have some guesses. Who was her mother? I do not have a clue.
What I do know is that she was adopted at birth by Edward M. and Carrie (Jay) Haynes and was embraced by them with unconditional love.
My speculation is that the adoption was kind of an in-family event. My mother’s biological father may have been my grandmother’s nephew. (That sounds complicated, but families are often complicated.)
The thing I know for certain is that my mother won the equivalent of the adoption sweepstakes. Ed and Carrie Haynes — educated and successful but childless — showered her with love, affection, discipline, and guidance.
And I know that my mother always felt blessed by their unconditional love and was determined to share that gift with others.
About the time she was two or three years old, there came an occasion when a car was being loaded up with kids and she was told to sit on the lap of an older boy, a guy about nine or 10.
That was my parents’ first encounter: Mom, the toddler, sitting on the lap of an unhappy, put-upon boy seven years older.
So, when I pause on Mothers’ Day to think about my mom, what comes to mind?
Things like:
•Her voice in the church choir.
•Standing around the piano or the organ while she played and we sang folk songs or Christmas carols together.
•Her tendency to cry when we happened — routinely — to spill milk on the kitchen floor the same day she had mopped.
•The year or two she served as “Den Mother” for my scruffy group of friends as we tried to become Cub Scouts.
•The first time I saw her truly break down, leaving the cemetery at Boston, south of Richmond, after my grandfather Ronald was buried.
•Her indulgence when it came to watching old movies on television when I was a kid. She had gone to college in California, had been an extra in a few pictures, and had dated the actor Victor Mature. (Her verdict: One date was more than enough.)
•Her leadership on the Portland-Wayne Township School Board and as — I believe — the first woman president of the Indiana School Boards Association.
•The time she went toe-to-toe with some park functionary at Pokagon because our tent was three feet over an imaginary line in the overflow campground. (She lost that battle, but I suspect the loss was only temporary. She raised enough ruckus to make sure no one else was treated that way.)
And on, and on, and on.
Most of the memories are too personal for sharing in a forum like this, but that’s the way it should be.
The important thing, last Sunday, was that each of us took a few moments to remember our mothers.
I know that I remember mine.