Mother’s Day poem by Julia Kasdor in Judy Russell’s faith column

One of the favorite Mother’s Day poems through the years has been “What I Learned From My Mother,” by Julia Kasdor. It goes like this:

“I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds.

“I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and fleck out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

“I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

“I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came.