Everyone has something to say about Mothers. Abe Lincoln said, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Tenneva Jordan said, “A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Milton Berle said if evolution really worked, why was it that mothers only have two hands. Dorothy Parker said “The best way to keep children home is to make the atmosphere pleasant – and let the air out of the tires.” And one of the Golden Girls said “It’s not easy being a mother. If it were, fathers would do it.”

But one of our favorite quotes about Mothers is from Zora Neal Hurston, who wrote “Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”

It’s one of the ultimate universal truths. We all have a mother. Some amazing, some okay, some that are the bane of our existence. Regardless of how we feel about it, we all have a mother. And Glena and Sabrina were lucky enough to have their very own special “Mother.”

She was their great-grandmother, but throughout her life, her name was “Mother.” Everyone in town called her Mother. I grew up with these girls, and into adulthood I never even knew Mother had any other name. She was quite simply Mother. She was the person who gave Glena and Sabrina their insatiable curiosity about the world, which we all agree led to the creation of Pick Up Sticks Jewelry Company. So it seems entirely appropriate that we dedicate our very first Pick Up Sticks Mother’s Day blog to their Mother. She was something else!

Here’s what Glena wrote about Mother

“My great-grandmother (I called her Mother – everyone did) practically raised me. My sister and I were twelve months and twenty days apart, so my mom was always relieved to see us walk the three blocks to Mother’s to spend the day or night (or both).

When I was six years old and my family would plan to go to a high school basketball game, I used to cry to go to Mother’s house instead. I never failed to get my way.

I loved going to her little pink house surrounded by lilac bushes, irises and pine trees. She was always ready for a game of checkers (she let you win), stringing buttons from the antique sewing machine drawer onto a long piece of thread, searching for baby birds that fell out of their nests, or rummaging through the chicken coop looking at relics our ancestors left behind. My personal favorite was when she would very patiently once again read Thumbelina at bed time – despite having read it only moments ago – and act excited every single time when she got to the best parts.

Mother was a character – she built us a tree house, but wouldn’t let us climb up in it because we might break our arm, she built us a sandbox in an old tractor tire, but wouldn’t let us dig in it because there might be black widow spiders inside, and she showed us where she kept the loaded pistol right beside the bed in case we had an intruder in the middle of the night – this when we were small children. Whether it was making mud pies, playing hopscotch on the front porch or swatting flies, Mother’s house was the place to be. I miss her.”

Happy Mother’s Day to our Pick Up Sticks friends! If you need a special charm for your mom, we have lots of choices – how about My Mother, My Friend? If you have a great story about your own mom, feel free to leave a comment with your favorite Mother story. There’s no better way to love and honor our moms than to preserve their stories.