The Gift of Mothers

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If you’ve ever gone to summer camp, odds are you’ve either made a lanyard or watched others make them. The materials may have changed—in my day, thin strips of plastic were the standard—but many of today’s campers still spend time in the craft hut, weaving together strands of fabric into circular cords, often with an attached clip or hook for holding objects such as whistles or ID cards.

Poet Billy Collins was one such camper. In “The Lanyard,” this former poet laureate of the United States describes making a gift for his mother from the plastic strips I myself remember so well. The poem, as we shall see, is about much more than lanyards.

First, however, a footnote: The “cookie nibbled by a French novelist” in the second stanza was a madeleine, a shell-shaped treat that is as much cake as it is cookie. The French novelist was Marcel Proust, author of the seven-volume classic “In Search of Lost Time.”

With that literary reference out of the way, let’s visit “The Lanyard”:

The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly— a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them, but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard. She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted spoons of medicine to my lips, laid cold face-cloths on my forehead, and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here is clothing and a good education. And here is your lanyard, I replied, which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp. And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Love, Care, and Time

Here, Mr. Collins presents us with a series of contrasts between the riches given to him by his mother to the “boxy red and white lanyard” he offered in return. Hers are the gifts of love, care, and time, while his is “this useless, worthless thing” he wove. To the boy, this exchange seems equal. To the man, of course, it is sad and somewhat ridiculous.

But this misses the central message of “The Lanyard.” Just before making his “rueful admission,” the poet deploys an old rhetorical tactic of the courtroom known as apophasis, which means bringing up a point while denying it or treating it as trivial.

“And here,” Mr. Collins wrote, “I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth that you can never repay your mother.”

The real point of the poem isn’t the son’s lanyard; it’s that we can never repay our mothers.

This assertion about the debts we owe our mothers won’t appeal to everyone. Those blessed with good-hearted, loving mothers will readily agree with Mr. Collins, whereas those raised by absent or cruel mothers might loathe their mothers.

Yet there is one gift, more precious than any other, that every mother gives to every child.

They give us the gift of life.

Without a mother, we wouldn’t be here, riding this merry-go-round globe that we call home. And unless we truly despise being a part of the human carnival, for that gift alone, we owe them our gratitude and thanks.

The Gift Repaid

We may often fail to remember this gift of life, but we can never forget the lanyards bestowed on us by our mothers—cords woven not with plastic or cloth but with words, deeds, and memories. The good mother matches the mom in Mr. Collins’s poem; her children are graced with countless acts of tender care and love. The woman who fails at motherhood leaves behind a lanyard of ugly memories and, quite often, a desire in both sons and daughters to become better parents. Even the mother who dies while her child is young will leave behind a lanyard of impressions, preserved by those who knew her and later conveyed to her son or daughter.

And here I must disagree with “the worn truth that you can never repay your mother.” Clearly, a bouquet of flowers and a special lunch at a restaurant are not recompense for her devotion but represent instead our feeble attempts to thank and honor Mom for all she’s done.

Yet there is a way to repay her—and in full. We do so when we weave a lifetime lanyard of our own, its strands made up of virtue, good deeds, kindness to others, and a life lived intentionally, trying to be the best we can be. Braiding this cord day by day pays homage to our mothers and fathers and, day by day, pays down the debt we owe them. This is the gift that keeps on giving as we pass it on to our children, family members, and friends. And that’s the best gift of all.