A Tribute On Mother’s Day

I+Love+You%2c+Mom!

According to Wikipedia, the United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In the United States, Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace. Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868, she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors. In parts of the United States, it is customary to plant tomatoes outdoors after Mother's Day (and not before).  This is good news to me because I haven’t planted my tomato plants yet!  When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday school.  Give a little shout out to my state of birth!

I found it interesting that nine years after the first official Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis became an opponent to the very day she immortalized because of the commercialization of Mother’s Day.  Man, wouldn’t she just love it today!  Mother's Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. 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.

Commercialized or not, I want to honor my mother.  I hope that I honor her every day!  My mom is the most amazing mother, wife, friend, and woman I know. 

She was only 19 when she had me and by the time she was 22 she had my sister and brother.  I am seventeen months older than my sister is and she is seventeen moths older than my brother.  I have only one child and I was 38 when I had him, so I cannot imagine being so young with three little ones.  My mom was and is the type of mother that sacrifices for her children.  I know many times my mom did without so they her children could have or do something.  I love my mom and strive every day to be just half the mother to my son that she is to me!

I cannot talk about Mother’s Day or my mom without mentioning another very special woman.  I have been blessed in my life to have been loved and mothered by another wonderful mother.  Her name was Rosetta McGuire b. July 22, 1945 and d. Feb. 9, 2006.  She was my best friend’s mother.  I spent so much time at her home, that one would think I was one of her daughters.  All I know is that she treated me just as she did her own daughters, and I am a better person today for having known her.  I’ll share a quick story with you.

I stopped by to visit with her while I was pregnant and she knew how worried and nervous I was about having a baby so before I left she placed her hands on my belly and said a prayer.  And a calm came over me and in that instant I knew my son would be fine.

So this Mother’s Day as I pay tribute to my mom, I also along with my best friend will be paying tribute to this amazing woman.  Here is to you mom and Rosetta!

If you have a special mom that you would like to honor, I would love to hear about her.  Hope to hear from you!  Enjoy Life!!!