To All Mothers Everywhere: Happy Mother’s Day!

Part of the flower explosion in my sister's garden.

So many words have been written about “mother,” I would not add anything new or better to the collection. However, recalling the wisdom that Forrest Gump learned from his mother … “My mother always said- Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get,” I asked a few people what their mothers always said.

Here are few samples of the answers: My mother always said. “Respect others and you’ll learn respect for yourself.” “Just don’t worry about it.” “Eat your vegetables.” “Human nature is human nature.” “Wash your hands.” and one more from Forrest. “You are no different from anyone else.”

I still have my mother and I owe her a lot, and the sacrifices that she made for us her children will always be one of our greatest treasures. I salute all our wonderful mothers, then. May God shower our mothers with abundant blessings today and always!

By the way, here’s a bit more, about the “mother’s day history” culled from the net:

The earliest tributes to mothers could be traced back to the spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea (the mother of many deities) and to the offerings Romans made to their great mother of gods, Cybele. Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In England this holiday was expanded to include all mothers and was called Mothering Sunday.

In the United States, Mother’s Day started nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it “Mother’s Work Day.”

Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.

When Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave in which she said, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers.”

Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen and politicians including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna’s mother in 1908, at her church in West Virginia, Anna handed out her mother’s favorite flower, the white carnation. Five years later, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother’s Day. In 1914 the hardwork of Anna paid off when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mother’s Day as a national holiday.

At first, people observed Mother’s Day by attending church, writing letters to their mothers, and eventually, by sending cards, presents, and flowers. With the increasing gift-giving activity associated with Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis became enraged. She believed that the day’s sentiment was being sacrificed at the expense of greed and profit. In 1923 she filed a lawsuit to stop a Mother’s Day festival, and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a convention selling carnations for a war mother’s group. Before her death in 1948, Jarvis is said to have confessed that she regretted ever starting the mother’s day tradition.

So now, mother’s day get copy-cat celebration in the country, too. (https://cbanga360.net)

Photo by Bob Adupe.

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