A Personal Poem for Mother's Day
MAKING MAMA PROUD
I used to live to hear my mama say, "That's my boy!"
When she said that with a gleam in her eye,
I knew she was bragging and I was making her proud.
Now that she's gone and I've said "good bye",
I still live in the way that would make Mama proud.
As long as I'm doing what would make her proud,
I know I'm on the right track.
She believed in God and that's the way she raised me,
To live in a way that gave her pride, to be able to praise me.
I knew if I read my Bible and did what God said,
I would make Mama proud
I know she's gone now and ain't coming back,
I know what I should do,
Because she showed me the right track.
I walk past her picture and smile.
I know that somehow she's still watching,
And I need to do what makes her proud.
And though I'm an old man now, I can still feel her arms around me.
Telling the church sisters and others who would listen,
"That's my Boy," because I was making her proud.
The world may have teased me and called me a square, but it never mattered
As long as I was doing the right things, that was making Mama proud.
From the way I dress, to the language I use, the grades I made,
to that girl I married, the question is, and always was, would
this make Mama Proud?
I still work at things as if she was watching, because I want my actions to say out loud,
"This would make her proud."
It wasn't always easy, sometimes it was downright hard,
Still though she's gone to be with the Lord, I believe she's watching and I'm still
checking myself daily to "do life" in a way that would make Mama proud.
Lord knows she did the same for me, and made me proud.
By Joe C. Hopkins