Mother's Birthday Poem by Mark J. Schulte

My mother's birthday is next month.
For over 50 years I've celebrated it,
(though sometimes belatedly because I forgot)
and often in absentia because of where I live.

But no matter.
She would always be happy to see me,
or hear from me.
Mothers are like that.

But now she's gone.
Yes - 335 days and counting.
I don't look forward to that day when I pick up the phone
and there's no mother to call.

Some say, don't despair, you have your own family.
But I don't have a mother anymore.
My memory harkens back to that old needlepoint
that used to hang over the piano:
'What is a Home without a Mother? '