Women Strong

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the official start of the Mother’s Day holiday. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May to be celebrated as Mother’s Day. Harry Hallmark smiled.

Before brunches, flowers and mandatory phone calls, the original intent of the holiday was a peace movement sustained by women who grieved their sons and husbands and brothers broken, maimed and killed in war. Ironic that it would be during the Wilson presidency the “war to end all wars” began and has never really concluded.

I am drawn to the image of women strong who wrote, rallied and raised awareness on the state-sanctioned carnage of war. The story reminds me of the women known as the “mothers of the missing” who gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina to stand in strong protest over their children who disappeared in what was known as Argentina’s “dirty war,” a time when the military juntas terrorized the country and over 30,000 sons and daughters went “missing.”

“I keep on looking for my children and everybody else’s children, because to me your daughter is my daughter, she’s a little bit mine. My children are a little bit yours,” said Carmen Robles de Zurita, a woman who is the Mother of two missing children.

There’s the rub. Whether one birthed and borne, or adopted and welcomed in, or have children in our lives that we care for, watch over and help raise…..we are all called to be mothers.

I come from a strong line of women who were resilient, connected to the land, had a deep-river faith, and for whom family was central. They provide me with a powerful lived image of strong women and tender mothers.

Although my Mom was a beauty whom when she put on her “Sunday best” matched shoes to clothes to jewelry and was elegant; when I think of her I see her in jeans and sweatshirts and sneakers. She had work to do and she did it very, very well. She succeeded in that most important labor of making a house a home, raising her children, doting on her grandchildren and every other child whom was blessed enough to be a part of her world, and being always there at the table where she would feed anyone who stopped by whenever and from wherever….nourishing in ways along with and a part from the food on the table.

She did not boast about her strength nor did she flex her power….Mom was always just there steady and strong and constant.

The strong women I know don’t complain, they are the originals of just getting it done.

The strong women I know set their resolve and rebound and remain.

The strong women I know love with a beautiful mix of tenderness and fierceness.

The strong women I know give voice not when it’s popular, yet, when it’s necessary.

The strong women I know are to be celebrated yes, on this day, yet, even more in how each of us follows their example by living our lives with strength and grace and continuing to mother and care for the children in our lives.

Happy Mother's Day;

sj;