A mother’s love, both in joy and in heartache, is eternal

By Ed Daniels, Sports
Clarion Herald

It was the best call a mother could ever make. It was Wednesday, Oct. 15, 1969.

Me: Mom, I don’t feel well.

Mom: You look OK to me.

Me: It is Game 4 of the World Series, the Orioles vs. the Mets.

Mom (feeling my forehead): You do feel warm. Stay home.

She made the call to St. Jerome School in Kenner. I crashed on the couch with a knot of French bread and a big bottle of Coke.

It was heaven on earth.

Moms are just so special. This weekend, former Rummel Raider Taylor Russolino was kicking in the XFL championship game for Arlington.

Russolino, a converted soccer player, has never given up on his dream of finding a permanent job in the NFL. He kicked for the Broncos for one regular-season game in 2020 and spent six weeks on the practice squad. He’s kicked in a total of seven leagues.

One of his biggest fans, is of course, his mother Kelly.

“She has always been someone I can rely on,” said Russolino this week. “Always supportive. Has never wavered in her belief of me.”

This week, St. Charles Catholic’s Ayden Authement finished up his senior season in athletics, playing baseball for the Comets. Authement is the youngest of five brothers, all to wear a Comets uniform.

At a quarterback club meeting, his mother Dana introduced herself to a reporter. She was glowing. It was a glow only a mother could give.

This weekend, I think of mothers who are not biological moms, who daily show their God-like qualities.

A couple we are proud to call great friends fostered a young lady. They are raising her in a Catholic home and sending her to a Catholic high school. She is thriving. This couple has given her shining examples of marriage, faith and family. The girl’s foster mother is a superior example of what a lady should be.

My bride, Robin, learned how to be a superb mom, from her mother Judy, who learned from her mother Pat. Pat absolutely lived for her family.

It is why each of her children, and all of her grandchildren, years after her passing, still speak about her with reverence. She lives forever. And, deservedly so.

On Mother’s Day, I sadly think of Rhonda George. Her son, Tollette, a quarterback at Edna Karr and later a star at Alcorn State, was gunned down near his Algiers home seven years ago. No arrest has been made in the case. Rhonda says she knows who her murdered her child.

For many of us, it is an unsolved murder, one of hundreds in the city of New Orleans. For Rhonda, it is a moment that still causes her much grief. Last week she told a reporter that she broke down and sobbed for much of the morning.

Her baby is never coming back. Only a mother could know the depth of her grief.

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