Ten Dollars Just to Get You Through

I wrote these lyrics awhile back, not long after my mother died.  Obviously, they aren’t from a professional song writer, but these just came from the heart.

This time of year, I am filled with gratitude even more than I am usually.  Thankfulness for so many gifts I’ve been given.  Even for tough things that have opened my heart up in ways I would not have imagined.

I don’t know where the ten dollars she gave me are now.  Used.  In my lock box. Tucked away with a watch I put away somewhere for safe keeping and now I can’t find.  But the treasure she gave lives within me always.

 

Ten Dollars Just to Get You Through

I always thought I’d write a poem ‘bout dad

Knowing that he’d given me all that he had

But these words are for my mother

My mom who gave her love to us so absolute-uh-ly

These words are written for my mother

A woman of complete integrity.

 

She took care of Pop through all those years of illness

Never asking for our pity or our help

She always sent us cards with money

Ten dollars just to get us through

Any hard times we might have bumped into.

 

She kept a box for each of us

Scrapbooks too of things that we would do

She kept us what she called our treasures

To have for us when she and dad were gone.

 

The week dad passed and gave her time to do something for herself

Her doctor told her yes, of course, bad news

After 60 years of smoking sticks of cancer

Her lungs had finally said it’s time to die.

 

After losing both my parents within just a few short months

It was harder than I ever thought that it would be

Going through my folk’s possessions

I stumbled on the box she’d made for me.

 

She’d kept treasures, things like a cow bell off the farm

And cards I’d sent to her

As I shuffled through all those mem’ries

Each step I saw she’d taken there with me.

 

She’d kept a box for each of us

Scrapbooks too of things that we would do

She kept us what she called our treasures

To have for us when she and dad were gone.

 

At the bottom of the box lay a light blue envelope

It said Michael and I had to open it up

Inside the card she wrote and said she loved me

And knew I’d live my life meaningfully

And my boy, I have something here for you

Ten dollars just to get you through

Any hard times you might have bumped into.

 

I put that money in my wallet, a gift of love from Mom

so pure and true,

and when I ran into a problem I pull it out and ask myself

what my Mom would do

What my Mom would do even though she never had

Anything but treasures for her kids.

 

I’d pull it out and know that my Mom was watching me

She’d prayed that I’d live my life meaningfully

And I’d hear her words come back to me

Here, my boy, she’d say, I have something just for you.

 

Ten dollars just to get you through

Any hard times you might have bumped into

Ten dollars here for you, just to get you through

Any hard times you might have bumped into.