Let’s do this well together!

Today’s verse: “I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.” Joshua Chapter 1 verse 5

Happy Mother’s Day! I know many of you will be a bit sad this Mother’s Day because you are cocooning and cannot physically have your children and/or grandchildren to visit you, but I hope you and they find other ways to share the day, through Facetime, Skype and even the good old telephone!

I hail from Derry/Londonderry and I can’t help but recall the words of the what may still be be world’s most famous song, ‘Danny Boy’, sung to the beautiful tune of the Londonderry Air. The words relate to a mother saying her farewells to her son who is off to distant parts, and she acknowledges that they may never see one another again, for by the time he returns she may well be in her grave. Why am I mentioning such a depressing thought today? Well, when people left to emigrate, up until the middle of the last century, it was perfectly possible that they might never see their relatives at home again. It was only with the increase in cheaper air travel that emigrants could return home for holidays and their family could visit them wherever in the world they had set up home.

My own mother died in 2000 and back then phone calls didn’t have the option of using Facetime or other visual means of connecting. I lived in Scotland at that time, so I couldn’t see her lovely, loving face when we talked. So although it may be tough not physically being with our loved ones, not just today, but for as long as this crisis lasts, we have many blessings in the modern means of communication available to us to see them and hear them in real time.

I had a wee giggle when I received a Mother’s Day card from my elder son, and below the usual greetings he wrote, ”Please wash your hands as COVID-19 can survive 24 hours on paper and card!” Maybe he should have sent me a virtual card instead!