The Prodigal Son's Mother

Nowhere in Luke 15:11-32, does it mention the mother of the prodigal son.  Where was she?  Was she in the fields, gathering wheat?  Was she on one of her many treks to town to fetch water from the common well?  Had she passed away early in her life from sickness?  If she had been at the house the day this story began, she would have told the father that it would be a mistake to give the boys their inheritance early; for a mother knows the hearts of her children.  She knows the one that can be trusted, the one who is lazy, the one who is kind, and the one who is cruel.  She would have seen how this was all going to play out from the beginning.  (Do I get a witness from the “mom” section?)

The Bible says the father saw his son from a distance.  If we are to read between the lines, we imagine the father staring down the road day after day after day, watching and waiting for his son to come home.  Where was the mother?  If she was anything like me, she was going about her business washing, cleaning, cooking, sewing, and teaching the children she had left.  But hiding in the secret places of her heart would be a longing, an aching for the child she lost so long ago.  Even though her life seems full with children and grandchildren, there would still be emptiness. Unlike the father, she could not have looked down the road day after day because the sight of that empty road would remind her of the emptiness in her heart; she had to keep moving.

When the father saw the son coming up the road, the Bible says, he “had compassion on him, and ran to him and embraced him, and kissed him.”  The next verse we read is that of the son asking his father for forgiveness. The Bible doesn’t speak of it, but if the mother were there, I believe the first face the son would have wanted to see was the mother’s.  There would be time later for confession.  There is a special connection between a mother and her son; likewise, between a father and his daughter.  No matter how bad the relationship may be, that connection still exists.  And while the father wanted to kill the fatted calf and throw a party, the mother would have wanted to sit quietly, holding her child in her arms.  She would have spent time looking in his eyes, stroking his hair, kissing his cheeks.  No words would be exchanged and no apologies necessary, just time spent soaking up the love in the room and thanking God for restoring the years the locusts had eaten.