As I sat in the kitchen that hot summer day so long ago, I wiped the perspiration from my brow after heaping the woodbox with split oak and aspen. I watched my mother prepare a glass of lemonade with cold water from the well, the reward for my labor. As I quenched my thirst, she tucked in her apron strings and removed from the hot oven a pan of golden brown bread, then a second pan, my favorite raisin bread, replacing them with a sheet of ginger cookies. With work-worn hands, she checked the steaming kettles on the stove, adding a pinch here and a stir there as her art of cooking demanded.

Looking back now after three quarters of a century, I appreciate the precious gift mother gave us day after day, year after year. As I bowed my head at that table to give thanks to Deity, I should have included mother who, in that sweltering kitchen, prepared heaped platters to satisfy our ravenous appetites.

How she created those tasty dishes with simple utensils and a wood-burning range is a mystery. Her culinary art was her own, to be remembered a lifetime. She never thought of praise but took silent satisfaction in watching us grow to adulthood.

It took a lot of years for her secret to reveal itself to me. In each dish she prepared—each loaf of bread, each apple pie, each three-layered chocolate cake—she included a bit of mother's love. Her secret ingredient came from her heart. Through it, she gave of herself the greatest gift of all, love for her family. Surely, God has a special place in heaven for mothers like her.
Mother, my heart is filled with memories of the loving things you did. On this Mother's Day, I want to tell you I am thankful for each one. 

Lloyd E. Meyer  became a Master Mason in Minnehaha Lodge No. 165 in  Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1955 and a Master of the Royal Secret in the Valley of Minneapolis in 1959. Brother Meyer is now 98 years old.