There’s only so much one can do with a sixty-five year old picture pulled from an old photo album. In this case, I laid it on a meat board where the light would shine on it, took a picture of it with my cell phone, pushed it through to Photo Shop Elements, and cleaned it up a bit.

So who are these smiling people? Who else but mothers in my family being remembered on Mother’s Day. The couple on the left are my grandparents, the couple on the right are my parents, and the beauty in front is my aunt.

So what is a mother? Not a beauty flashing a big smile, which these women are. It’s a little more complex than that.

‘A mother is a woman sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but someone never meaning to maim with her words or actions. She is motivated by caring and sharing, shifting priorities, and love. She passes out cookies and band aids with a smile, cries when she receives a painted rock for a present, and prepares her child or children for adulthood dreading the day when it arrives. Merely, she is a woman trying to be the best mother she can, and if she falls short of expectations, she gets up and gives it another try. She is not perfect, does not want to be put on a pedestal, and as this picture proves, no matter what she will always be a mother. Now then and forever.’