For those with us and those departed - A psalm for Mothers on Mother's Day

Mothers breathe life into marriage.

Mothers breathe life into newborn babies.

Mothers breathe life into the homes in which we live.

Mothers are the breath of life.

There is something indefinable about what a mom gives to a household.

Her spirit can either fill a home with happiness, or leave an indelible vacuum of airless space.

The loss of a mother from a home, either by divorce or death, strips a home of its personality, its character. The home can then become a forgotten grave.

Unkempt. Untouched. Lonely. Impenetrably nocturnal even in daylight.

Children cuddle with their moms as a post-fetal return to the womb outside of the body. Even pets seem to favor the moms of the house. Life itself subscribes to mothers.

Be alert to the small differences a mom makes to your life while she is still around. Sure enough you'll see the difference when she's no longer there. It's then that you'll hear the choking silence. You'll feel the absence of touch. You'll hear the silence of voice.

You'll see the loss. Emptiness will envelope you, seal you, and send you to a non-returnable address of vacancy. The vacancy of the mind. The vacancy of the Soul. Holidays lose their place on calendars.

Dinnertime becomes starved of the nutrition that once fed the family spirit. The family bond becomes unglued. Undone. Sometimes irreparably. The deadening coldness of winter takes irreversible residency in what were once hearts that could at one time only recognize the warmth of an endless summer, and never before knew a seasonal change of their own.

More than any other person in a family, the mom of the house controls our weather. She is the goddess of wind, sun, and rain, all within the confines of a home. The wind is her breath of life. The sun is the heat of her warm embrace-the shine of her smile. The rain is her uninhibited expression of emotion. She can educate our wisdom, lighten our crosses with humor, and manufacture our dreams.

Happy Mothers Day to all moms-ones who are here, and ones who now live only in our hours of sleep and our daylight moments of memory, eternally youthful and still so much alive, there for us whenever we choose to return to them the same breath of life they gave us so they may remain forever in the picture books of our minds.

• John DiMambro is publisher of the Nevada Appeal. Write to him at jdimambro@nevadaappeal.com