By Cheryl Springer
I swiped the headline for this week’s column from a book by a man named Harold W Becker, which I stumbled on while doing research in order to try to have the last word in an argument about religion: the one topic about which I had always sworn I would never argue. Ah well, as the saying goes, one should never say never.
Becker’s book, which I have not read, is called Unconditional Love – An unlimited way of being. A little more research revealed that Becker really is into love. He has a set up a non-profit organisation dedicated to it called the Love Foundation. He also celebrates an annual ‘Global Love Day’ on May 1, this year being the fifth such year.
In a world where war, crime, strife and anger seem to have taken root, Becker’s efforts to promote love appear to be commendable. I say ‘appear to be’ because I only read maybe the first three lines at the top of a single page.
However, the title of the book called to mind spiritual and familial love and spoke to me of that which exists between a mother and her child/children.
Have you ever heard someone say ‘s/he has a face only a mother would love’? This, to me, is “an unlimited way of being”; the sort of infinite love that transcends the physical and which of course brought me to thoughts of today.
Today is Mothers Day. The honouring of mothers on the second Sunday in May, began in the United States in the early 1900s. It has since spread around the world, perhaps a bit too much as Mothers Day has been excessively commercialised. Notwithstanding that, however, and while it is not a holiday per se, and has no religious connotation, it is a day with universal appeal and one that undoubtedly will always be observed in some fashion regardless of prevailing circumstances.
Today is set aside for recognizing the contribution mothers have made/continue to make not just to their children and sometimes other people’s, but also to the entire ‘mother earth.’ However, for some people it brings with it sad memories.
Consider those whose mothers, as a friend of mine delicately puts it, “… have, either suddenly or finally, experienced the full cycle of this precious, mysterious, blessed wonder called life: They were born, birthed children and moved on, leaving us here to continue our lives…”
He continues, “Only another soul without their mother can fully empathize with the utter yearning and specialized loneliness that becomes easier to bear but never quite passes… Endure the pain of losing your mother, and when they drop the nuclear bomb, you will simply absorb it.”
I am fortunate to be in a position where the threat of a nuclear bomb still leaves me paralysed with fear. I still have my mother. She is far away, but I am comforted in the knowledge that I can dial a number and hear her voice.
Perhaps because I am in that comfort zone, I believe that the acuity of the mourning of the motherless would depend on the circumstances of the mother’s leaving, the age/s of the child/children she left – and whether it was suddenly or finally. Adults who would have had their mothers around for most of their lives might find celebrating Mothers Day bittersweet, but still find a way to do so. Children, of whatever age, who lost theirs while still young or who never knew them could have more of a difficulty celebrating, unless, of course, there was someone who stepped in to try and fill the breach, so to speak.
I cannot help but think here of the many young children whose mothers would have died violently at the hands of bandits, or at the hands of their fathers/stepfathers, particularly the most recent cases. Then there are those whose mothers have died or are dying of cancer, an AIDS-related illness or some other terminal disease.
Consider too, women who yearn to encounter that unlimited way of being, but for whom it never happens. Another friend, who describes it as a “horrible emotional rollercoaster,” writes: “I just don’t get it. There are women who don’t want to be pregnant who get pregnant. There are families that abuse, torture and abandon their kids and they get to be pregnant again and again.
There are women who drink and smoke and do drugs throughout pregnancy and then they still have kids who are alive and who they do not even want! Then there is me…”
That exceedingly trite phrase ‘life is so unfair’ applies here. It is, however, worth noting that experiencing the unlimited way of being does not always need to be rooted in blood ties. History is replete with stories of unconditional familial love that did not begin in the womb; the biblical story of Moses and his ‘adopted’ mother Thermuthis, the Pharaoh’s daughter, being one of the prominent ones. Undoubtedly, there are endless present-day examples as well. Hallmark knows. It has an entire line devoted to nurturers who do not share the same bloodlines as their children.
