A Mother's Smile

Photograph: My mother, Eva, and I wade in a creek on my paternal grandparents' farm.


Mother’s Day is not a pleasant occasion for everyone, but it’s a good day for me; my late mother, Eva, gave me a hefty dose of love.

Though I’ve never been incarcerated, I often think about an old song called “The Sweetest Gift, a Mother’s Smile.” Here are the words to that song:

“One day a mother came to a prison / To see an erring but precious son / She told the warden how much she loved him / It did not matter what he had done.

“(Chorus) She did not bring a parole or pardon / She brought no silver no pomp or style / It was a halo sent down from heaven / The sweetest gift, a mother’s smile.

“Her boy had wandered far from the fireside / Though she had pleaded with him each night / But not a word did she ever utter / Her heart was flowing, her smile was bright.

“She left a smile you can remember / She’s gone to heaven from heartache’s grief / Those walls around you will never change you / You were her baby and e’er will be.

“(Chorus) She did not bring a parole or pardon / She brought no silver no pomp or style / It was a halo sent down from heaven / The sweetest gift, a mother’s smile.”

Most mothers I know of love their children and empathize with them as they experience successes and failures. T. DeWitt Talmage said, “Mother – that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.”

Abraham Lincoln said, “I remember my mother’s prayers, and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

My mother, Eva, brought me into the world over three years ahead of my sister, Shirley. My first memories are of living with Mom and Dad in a white-shingled frame house on Groce Meadow Road in rural Greenville County, S.C.

Mom encouraged me but said she didn’t want to make me into “a mama’s boy,” so maybe she wasn’t quite as huggy as some mothers. Perhaps that’s why I tended to squirm and resist my Great Aunt Lucy’s wet kisses and enveloping embraces.

Mother read books from “The Sugar Creek Gang” Christian-themed, mystery series to my sister and me. She also showed me how to draw. My first drawing lesson I remember happened this way: I was probably four or five years old and sitting on a hard church pew during a Sunday night service at Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church. I grew restless, and Mother took a small notepad and a pencil from her pocketbook.

“I’ll show you how to draw a mule,” she whispered, as the preacher expounded.

She drew a capital M for ears. She then drew a capital U, connecting the top-left side of the U to the bottom-left side of the M. The U became the mule’s muzzle. She added an eye, a mouth and a nostril to complete a side view of a mule. To the right side of the mule’s head, she drew a neck and a close-cropped mane on that neck.

She handed me the pad, and I began with an M and a U. Soon, I had a mule. I think I even added a body to my mule. She couldn’t have chosen a better animal to inspire me. My paternal grandfather had two mules, and I sometimes sat on Pete’s back; he was the gentler and older of the two critters.

I drew lots of mules in the days that followed. Vacation Bible School arrived that year, and, on one night, each person in my class received a large piece of paper and was asked to draw a picture. I drew a mule, a big one that filled my paper. They said they were going to show our pictures on commencement night. I knew I’d be proud.

On the following Sunday evening, our Bible School commencement night, my mother, who was a helper in my class, was asked to show the drawings we had done as part of my group’s presentation to the church’s small congregation.

The time in the service came for our drawings to be shown. Mom began holding up pictures, one-by-one, and telling the name of each artist: Steve Babb, Don Hill, Linda…Boyce…and so on.

“Mine must be at the bottom,” I thought.

Finally, Mom lifted up the last drawing. My large mule was easy to see from almost anywhere in the sanctuary. I waited for Mom to call my name, but she just smiled a big smile and held up my work. Most people in our church knew who drew that mule. A lot of them laughed and clapped. I wondered if Mom didn’t call my name because she was trying to teach me not to get too proud or if she was thinking about not wanting me to be a mama’s boy. She didn’t have to call out my name, though. Her facial expression communicated her love for me. Perhaps there are few gifts sweeter than a mother’s smile.