Mothers

I should be an expert on mothers. Yes, I had a mother, Selma, but she succumbed to cancer a week before I turned four. Then my father’s sister, Edna, came to help out for a couple of weeks and stayed four years. She was my beloved vicarious mother. The my father married Shirley and I was blessed with a step-mother. Eventually I married and inherited Frances, my mother-in-law whose tenure was much too brief. And of course, my esteemed wife, Barbara, became a mother, mother-in-law and grandmother. When our children were small, and we lived a long way from our mothers, we had some wonderful adopted grannies, Eleanor and Marie. No mother nearby? Why not adopt one?

But am I an expert? Hardly. I will say, though, that motherhood is a wonderful invention, with a divine, not human origin (think: Adam and Eve). Of all the possible ways the human race could have been designed to reproduce itself, motherhood is still the most ingenious way. Just try to imagine otherwise.

Consequently, if Mother’s Day had not been invented years ago, someone else would have launched this ongoing, rapturous occasion. Mother’s Day is a sacred occasion, overlooked now and then by a spouse or a child, but it is more generally remembered. When we think of mothers, as mentioned earlier, we think of Eve. Totally inexperienced, no mother to point the way, no midwife or nursery but she did become a mother. Moving on, Sarah comes to mind. The poor dear, so desperate for a child but too many years had passed her by. Yet she became a mother and you know the rest of the story. And of course there is Mary, the mother of Jesus and her magnificent relative, Elizabeth.

Moving outside of Biblical moments we see the Great Mother Goddess, the Middle Eastern symbol of fertility. Augustine, 354–430, one of the four Latin Fathers, of course overshadows his mother, St. Monica, who was a significant influence in his life. Lesser known is the American labor agitator called Mother Jones, born in Ireland in 1830 and lived for nearly a century. A long-time champion of laws to end child labor, she continued as a union organizer and agitator into her nineties. And of course there is Mother Teresa so well known and loved.

An author once wrote that “A mother is mother still, The holiest thing alive.” Samuel Lover (1797-1834) lamented that “A baby was sleeping, Its mother was weeping, For her husband was far on the wild raging sea.” Modern mothers whose children are in harm’s way can readily identify with this. The humorist William Cowper may have coined the expression . . . “strive still to be man before your mother.”

The term “mother” is used in so many ways: Mother Nature, Mother Lode, Mother Tongue, Mother Figure, Mother Earth, Mother Superior, Foster Mother, Surrogate Mother, Motherland and Mother of Pearl . . . The Swedes have a unique way of expressing Grandmother as Mor Mor (mother’s mother) and Far Mor (father’s mother). And mother has also been used to dramatically illustrate degradation as St. John in the Book of Revelation (17:5) referred to the unusually wicked ancient city as “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots.”

We’ve been urged to Honor your Mother [and Father]. Why? That your days may be sustained. In other words, for sheer survival. TV waves recently have been discussing motherhood. Is it an art or a science? Do mothers really mother their children? What does that mean? Should a mother be a mother or merely a good friend? What is involved in mothering? Should mothers snoop in their children’s lives if they suspect suspicious activity? Obviously, mothers are very important.

It is more than a duty to honor our mothers; it is a privilege. Mother’s Day is a memorable day for not only mothers but for children, grandchildren, husbands, extended family and friends. In truth, Mother’s Day should be celebrated more than one day a year. To all mothers out there, senior grandmothers and rookie moms, have a wonderful Day and an even better Tomorrow.

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