The Mother of All Holidays

[[E V E N T S]] * Today is Mother’s Day in America, as almost any busy flower seller or opportunistic restaurateur could tell you. I lost my own mother 17 years ago to Lou Gehrig’s disease, but not a single day goes by when I don’t think about her love, her warmth, and her hopes for her two sons. Celebrating her today seems almost redundant, but I’ll do so anyway.

When you get a chance, check out the Mother’s Day entry at Wikipedia. It recalls that in the United States, this annual tribute to female parenthood was “originally conceived by social activist Julia Ward Howe during the American Civil War with a call to unite women against war.” In 1870, Howe composed a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” that called for peace and disarmament in the world. Unfortunately, notes Wikipedia, “Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother’s Day for Peace.” Too bad, as we could certainly use more mothers these days standing up against an incompetent administration bent on sending sons and daughters into the maw of war.