Mother's Day

This day is simply marvelous for many reasons, not the least of which, it was started in my favorite city, with the help of one of my favorite people, at one of my favorite times in history, for a wonderful reason. A woman by the name of Anna Marie Jarvis along with Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker established Mother's Day in 1905 to commemorate her mother, Ann Jarvis, who had recently passed away. Ann was a fiery sort of a dame who set up Mother's Day Work Clubs all around the county to fight for better sanitation and work conditions. During the Civil War, these groups provided services to both Union and Confederate soldiers neutrally, because all soldiers are always also a mother's son.
I am not a mother. I'm not sure I have any specific inclination to be one. Nevertheless, there are few solid guarantees in life and one of them is that at some point, everyone in this world had or has a mother. Your best friend, your train conductor, the clerk at that grubby little stand outside your office who remembers your favorite three o'clock snack, and the love of your life all had a mother who for nine months, carried a heart beneath their own. The choice to share their body to nurture a new life is a sacrifice and a joy worth recognizing in and of itself. Also likely, that same woman shaped your favorite people into who they are today. Maybe not. But someone did. It is even more likely that lots of someones were involved in the process. As a godmother and an aunt who read a story, changed a diaper, and kissed the tear stained cheeks of a very darling 2 month old, I think that it is worth mentioning that no one person raises another.
So Happy Mother's Day to my mother and the mothers of my best friend, of my train conductor, of my shop clerk, and of the love of my life. And to all of the women in-between who added a smile to a day or picked up where a mother could not always be. Thank you. You make the world go round in a very pleasant manner.