Commentary: Many years ago, our nation established a Sunday in May as a time to recognize mothers and our human maternal nature. We know this as Mother’s Day.
There is so much now that divides people in our nation and world. There is the emotion-fueled world of politics. There are international tensions among countries and groups of people that never go away no matter what era we live in. There are economic pressures generated by modern life in the twenty-first century. There are conflicts and rivalries among our age groups. There are the many distractions caused by smartphones and big screen televisions and social media websites and other technologies. Divisions are everywhere. And many people actively seek to exploit those differences for personal gain.
But there is one thing that all of us will always share together. This is a very human bond we have with everyone else on the face of the earth and who was ever born in any age whether we choose to recognize this or not.
Each of us was born to a woman, a mother. Some of us know and love her. Some of us barely know or knew her. For others, they may not even know her at all. And for many, a mother is someone who willingly and lovingly and selflessly claimed that role outside of giving actual birth to a certain child. But in whatever form, we were given life and inspiration and hopefully a safe, honorable, and positive life direction from someone named Mother. It is always a tragedy when that is not the case.
A good mother is priceless and a miracle to experience. A good mother is the closest thing to a angelic figure that we may ever know.
This is the time when we especially recognize and show thanks to those who gave us life and hope and unconditional love if we are lucky to have been gifted those things. As we honor, thank, and remember her perhaps we can also extend appreciation to everyone else in our path that knows life because of a mother.
Every person on the face of the earth is someone’s child. Every person craves to know a mother’s love. Every person needs a mother’s love, in whatever form they can experience it. This should be our first and most fundamental human right: to know the kind of love that only a mother can give. From someone, somewhere, in some way. And always, if only in our hearts.
All of the things that divide us melt into nothing once we recognize and embrace the indivisible humanity that we do and will always share with everyone who lives today and every person who lived before us. We can’t get away from that fact no matter how much some might try.
It is that sense of humanity that is who and what we really are and will always be. That is what being a mother is all about. For that, no expression of thanks can ever be enough.