Sandwiches

It’s almost Mothers’ Day and I’m making sandwiches. Not for my family. I have long since graduated from the PB&J level of nightly lunch preparation. Today I am preparing 25 sandwiches for the homeless.

It started when I was still working, and hadn’t the time to do much in the way of volunteering at church. Helping with the congregation’s commitment to provide sandwiches for the homeless meant making 25 sandwiches once every couple of months, and making sure they reached the church’s refrigerator before 9:30 AM on the designated day. That was easy.

Today, though, it’s hard. With Mothers’ Day looming on the horizon, I am thinking, as I lay out 25 slices of bread on my counter, of the mothers who must have done this long ago for the same people. I am thinking of the mothers among them who performed this quotidian task—and now lack the wherewithal to do it for themselves. I am remembering the thousands of times I opened my lunchbox and groaned at my mother’s bologna –with- too- much- mayonnaise and her requisite piece of cake (whose icing always stuck to the wax paper) instead of the far more desirable Tasty-Kake I coveted. How many of the people eating my homely ham and cheese wish that it were something else, a remembered sandwich from their childhood? How many had no mom-packed lunches in their past? How many had no mom at all?

It isn’t a great act of charity, twenty-five ham and cheese sandwiches this week before Mothers’ Day. But as I slide them into individual plastic sandwich bags, I remember what it means to have a mom, what it means to BE a mom. I remember that I am one of the lucky ones—with a home and a family to care for. I am lucky enough to make a sandwich or two.