Spokane7
33°
Good morning, Netizens…
There is hardly anyone who recognizes the name Anna Marie Jarvis, who was borne in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which seems a bit of an anomaly since she was the originator of Mothers Day, and yet within her lifetime, having created a day to commemorate all mothers in 1914, also became the person who sought to undo her actions.
By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis had become so soured on the commercialization of Mothers Day, he incorporated herself as the Mothers Day International Association, trademarking the phrases “second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day”. She and her sister Ellsinore spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. They both became embittered because too many people sent their mothers a printed greeting card. As she said, “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A petty sentiment!”
Amen to that!
Anna Jarvis notwithstanding, Mother’s Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially-successful U.S. occasions of the entire year. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States, ostensibly with your mother. Mothers Day is also one of the peak saturation times according to Qwest Communications, when everyone calls their moms. Dare I mention you might even e-mail her your best wishes? Like this would help the economic recovery, and show your love for Mom?
Hell, how many Americans choose to spend time with their Mothers on Mothers Day, to celebrate the wonderful things she gave to them, and how many instead opt to go buy something, rather than dedicate some personal time to dear old mom?
I cannot complain too loudly here, for my mother and I hardly had what you might call a poster-child relationship due to issues of child abuse which, in retrospect, Mother had little power to change. I suppose if she were alive today, and given the distance between here and there, I would call her, attempting in my own way to heal the rifts of the past. I might even write her a letter, hoping I could find closure for those horrid events, but what is done is done.
However, that being said, if your mother is alive and well today, did you call her? Did you offer to take her someplace special and treat her with the honor, love and tender care she so richly deserves? If you are one of the aforementioned mothers, please accept my humble congratulations on Mothers Day. If it were not for mothers, we wouldn’t all be here, now would we?
Dave
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lewis8457 on May 10 at 10:49 a.m.
i just got done talking to my mother. I am hoping she will out live me. i can not imagine a world with out her in it.
Later we will get together for a good meal some where.
ChefGus/ John Olsen on May 10 at 1:06 p.m.
I am blessed to have a mother who at 88 is steady as a rock… took her to see The Soloist on Friday last so she could see what I do “for a living”…. at the food court in Northtown.. she just told me to go ahead and order my fish and chips and she’d go get a burger.. which she did, brought it back and then told me where we would be sitting etc… Other than profound deafness in her one remaining ear she is in great shape…
She often tells the “mothers day story” of me at about age 5, with my father’s help bringing her breakfast in bed… her favorite foods…. Pancakes and Beer… we still eat pancakes together in the morning on occasion, and toss down a beer at night when i visit her.
A caveat she always gave me to use in my perambulations with various women was “Watch how she treats her mother” because that is how she will treat you eventually.. and she was right all of the time… that and check her toilets to see if they are clean or not… rules of life, whether stated or learned by watching most all come from our mom’s. john
ChefGus/ John Olsen on May 10 at 1:08 p.m.
Frank, your mom is likely why you are such a kind man, and so nice to folks that are around you.. j
lewis8457 on May 10 at 3:38 p.m.
John, In my younger days I did not get along well with my mom. But as I get older and have lived through or experienced what she went through I became more aware. In that lesson I find love and acceptance for her, all she did for me as a child, as well as into adult hood, was the best she could do.
After all we are family and what tighter bond is there then family.
spokelooneh on May 10 at 3:43 p.m.
Mother’s Day Proclamation
Julie Ward Howe 1872
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Dave Laird on May 11 at 5:22 a.m.
Good morning, spokelooneh…
Excellent quote! A fitting and thoroughly engaging way to bring Mothers Day 2009 to a close.
Dave