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<\/a><\/p>\nMy mother always smelled of Arpege cologne.\u00a0 It was her favorite.<\/p>\n
When company was coming, or for a special occasion, she’d always wear her pearls.\u00a0 They made her look especially pretty.<\/p>\n
And I always hated to see her volunteer as “class mother”.<\/p>\n
Why, given that she was an amazing mom?<\/p>\n
Simply because, if there were a game or exercise for which she had to choose students to participate, I knew <\/em>she wouldn’t pick me.<\/p>\n She didn’t want to “play favorites”.<\/p>\n But what I remember best about my mother, was one experience in autumn, 1967.<\/p>\n “I saw all this money blowing around on the street,” she said.\u00a0 “I thought it was play money.\u00a0 Then, I looked more closely and saw it was real<\/em> money.”<\/p>\n The total sum of the cash blowing around the street?\u00a0 Around $200.<\/p>\n My mom said she’d gathered up the bills, with the help of a friend from church who happened by.\u00a0 Then, she went on to the bank–where she asked for her favorite teller.<\/p>\n “I think one of your depositors might have dropped this,” my mother said.<\/p>\n Hearing the story from my mom was no surprise.\u00a0 That was how she was.\u00a0\u00a0 If your mother is a concert pianist, you’re used to hearing symphonies.<\/p>\n But the story doesn’t end there.<\/p>\n My mom had been home from the store for about an hour when the doorbell rang.\u00a0 When she answered it, an older gentleman stood on the front porch.<\/p>\n He had come to thank her.<\/p>\n “I cashed my pension check,” our visitor said.\u00a0 “I reached in my pocket for a handkerchief and must have pulled out the money.\u00a0 That’s my income for the next two weeks.”<\/p>\n He insisted on giving my mother a $10 reward, which she didn’t want to take.\u00a0 And about a week later, a letter came in the mail.<\/p>\n His daughter, a Catholic nun, had written my mother a beautiful note, thanking her for her kindness to her dad.\u00a0 My mother, of course, would never have thought of doing any differently.<\/p>\n “I don’t want what doesn’t belong to me,” she commented.<\/p>\n In this day when people make headlines for returning large sums of money they’ve found, I think about that experience a lot.<\/p>\n Thank you for your gift, Mom.\u00a0 Happy Mother’s Day, and I miss you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Noella Noelophile\u00ae My mother always smelled of Arpege cologne.\u00a0 It was her favorite. When company was coming, or for a special occasion, she’d always wear her pearls.\u00a0 They made her look especially pretty. And I always hated to see … Continue reading ![\"Purple](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/more-purple-flowers-1-e1585763729522.jpg\")
<\/a>She’d gone to the bank and store on a routine errand.\u00a0 When she returned, she had a story to tell.<\/p>\n![\"White](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/jasmine-11-e1588967515298.jpg\")
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