She's Mom Because She's the Flower of God's Greatest Creation: You and Me.

BY EDWIN COONEY


Last week, I concluded my sketchy history of the celebration of Motherhood throughout history by saying that I wasn’t sure what it all meant. After all, my recitation concluded with the founder of Mother’s Day bringing suit and demonstrating for florists to stop using the holiday as a money-making vehicle.

Now, seven days later after hearing and reading countless ads for everyone to provide mother with candy, flowers, jewelry, household appliances, teddy bears, and so much more -- for the lowest reasonable price of course -- it’s not hard to be at least slightly sympathetic to the late Anna M. Jarvis’s anxiety as to what she had wrought. After all, Anna was under the erroneous illusion that one could adequately express one’s deepest feelings of respect, tenderness and love for Mama without spending a dime—or even a penny. Come to think of it though, what did Anna Jarvis know anyway: very few women worked for a dollar during most of her lifetime! How could she be expected to realize the value of a buck?

Various visions of Mom come to us amidst the advertisements and the heartfelt appeals to our sentiments regarding Mom.

The New York Lottery put out a radio ad that goes something like this:

Mom: “Oh, Son! Thank you for that card—-it was so lovely.”

Son: “It was a lottery card, Mom.”

Mom: “Yes, I know, dear, and there was a place on it that I was supposed to scratch, but I didn’t want to. But your father said that I should, so I did and I won $250,000.”

Son: “Mom, you won that much money? That’s wonderful.”

Mom: “Money has nothing to do with it because, in order to win any money, I’d have to turn the card in and I’d never turn a card sent by you in. Remember the first Mother’s Day card you ever sent me? It was made of macaroni and rubber bands. It was beautiful and I still have it. So is this one and I’m keeping it.”

Son: “But, Mom, this one has money in it.”

Mom: “Yes, Son, and it’s beautiful and that’s why I’m keeping it—yes, it’s just beautiful—so is the envelope!”

Thus, we have a vision of Mom as one whose maternal instinct is so dominant that despite her son’s (and, supposedly, her husband’s) incredulity, she’ll keep something given to her by her precious offspring rather than turn it in for a larger and more practical reward. Some would wonder if there might be a mom in America who could really be that stupid. It’s hard to imagine that anyone exists, Mom or not a Mom, who would be so wonderfully and dreamily principled. Yet there is a doubt in the corner of our minds --because of our experiences with some of the more saintly among us -- and that’s why an ad of this type works. Mom, after all, is so sainted around this time each year by the seriously poetic that such a mom as portrayed above and below might even exist.

A few days ago a friend sent me the following which she thinks is beautiful and it’s hard to argue the contrary.

The young mother set her foot on the path of life. "Is
this the long way?" she asked. And the guide said: "Yes and the way is hard.
And you will be old before you reach the end of it.. But
the end will be better than the beginning."

But the young mother was happy, and she would not
believe that anything could be better than these years. So she
played with her children, and gathered flowers for
them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams; and
the sun shone on them, and the young Mother cried,
"Nothing will ever be lovelier than this."

Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was
dark, and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother
drew them close and covered them with her mantle, and the children said,
"Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come."

And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead, and
the children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary.
But at all times she said to the children," A little patience and we are there."
So the children climbed, and when they reached the top
they said, "Mother, we would not have done it without you."

And the mother, when she lay down at night looked up
at the stars and said, "This is a better day than the last, for my
children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage.
Today, I've given them strength."

And the next day came strange clouds which darkened
the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil, and the children groped
and stumbled, and the mother said: "Look up. Lift your eyes to the light.”
And the children looked and saw above the clouds
an everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the
darkness. And that night the Mother said,
"This is the best day of all, for
I have shown my children God."

And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and
the years, and the mother grew old and she was little and bent.
But her children were tall and strong, and walked with
courage. And when the way was rough, they lifted her,
for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill,
and beyond they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And
mother said, "I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know the end
is better than the beginning, for my children can
walk alone, and their children after them."

And the children said, "You will always walk with us,
Mother, even when you have gone through the gates."
And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates
closed after her. And they said: "We cannot see her
but she is with us still. A Mother like ours is more than a memory. She
is a living presence......."

Your Mother is always with you.... She's the whisper
of the leaves as you walk down the street; she's the smell of bleach
in your freshly laundered socks; she's the cool hand
on your brow when you're not well. Your Mother lives
inside your laughter. And she's crystallized in every teardrop.
She's the place you came from, your first home; and
she's the map you follow with every step you take. She's your first love
and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can
separate you.

Not time, not space... not even death!

That deeper view of Mom possesses powerful eloquence which places every mother on the purist and loftiest pedestal. Your experience may be very different from mine, but I don’t know many moms who would really identify with this last testimony, any more than those moms who could live up to the New York Lottery’s characterization of “dearest Mom.”

Moms are special, of course, because they’ve been granted a God given power—which no man possesses—that of both giving and nurturing life. A male doctor can sustain and even strengthen life, but only a Mom can give life. How able she is to sustain life once it’s given depends upon forces way beyond her control.

What the above tribute to Mom almost entirely ignores is Mom’s very humanity. Further, it assumes that all Moms are blessed with obedient children willing at all times to follow Mom. It takes no account of the tens of thousands of moms who, with broken hearts, find that their children have chosen unhappy paths of existence. Nor are all ends better than the beginning. Nevertheless, in its own perspective, the above homage to Motherhood is worthy because it does express the all-encompassing power that uninhibited mother love can bring when a mother’s children are willing to receive and value her love.

To me, Mom is a very special person for all that is stated above. However, it seems to me that the moms who are truly the best of all are the moms who grapple with and strive to overcome their own imperfections. Also, I can’t resist the following observation:

The loveliest Mom is the Mom who sets standards but, because she’s struggled through her own imperfections, still loves you despite yours.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY