She is a proud mom, tender care-giver, nurse, resource, friend.  She can teach, cheer-lead, cook, correct, advise, motivate and hug better than the best mother ever.

Please celebrate the moms in your life today. Please enjoy every moment together.

But let me remind you to be sensitive to the quiet sadness that may be felt by some other people around you. There are mothers who are just as precious but no longer with us. Please don’t make your mom-celebration so loud that you trample on those who also associate loss with this special day.

In fact, there are many who struggle on Mother’s Day:

  • Children whose mothers have passed away – who still deeply feel the sting of loss years later;
  • Mothers who have an unhealthy or dangerous relationship with a child who is rebellious or has addiction or mental health issues;
  • Children who have an unhealthy or dangerous relationship with a mother who, as an adult, has addiction or mental health issues;
  • Women who want to be mothers but are not able to be. Couples for whom pregnancy is an impossible dream and even adoption can be expensive or elusive;
  • And perhaps most difficult of all, some moms have simply lost their children: miscarriage, accident, illness, suicide.

On Mother’s Day we will celebrate beautiful and loving mothers in our lives; we will remember with joy and pride and love.  But we will do it quietly and privately as a thankful family.

 

Today I remember with deep gratitude the loving mothers in my life.

In memory of the ones who are gone: my mother Eleanor, my mother-in-law Joan who was like a mother to me, and my wife Marilyn the mother of my perfect children.

And in admiration of the exceptional mother and grandmother I have come to know in my wife Cheryl.

‘I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.’  – Ephesians 1:16