We Celebrate Mother's Day

 Honoring mothers and motherhood

We celebrate Mother’s Day to honor the love, sacrifices, and influence of mothers, a tradition shaped by both ancient customs and the modern efforts of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century.

Mother’s Day exists because societies across history have recognized the central role of mothers, but the holiday as we know it today began in the United States. Its modern form was created by Anna Jarvis, who organized the first official Mother’s Day service in 1908 to honor her own mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, a community activist who worked to support families and promote public health. Jarvis then campaigned for a national holiday, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson officially established Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May. 

Historical Roots:

Ancient traditions: Civilizations like the Greeks and Romans held festivals celebrating mother goddesses such as Rhea and Cybele, linking motherhood with fertility, life, and community. These early rituals helped shape the symbolic meaning of honoring mothers. 

Christian “Mothering Sunday”: 

In medieval Europe, people returned to their “mother church” on the fourth Sunday of Lent, which evolved into a day to honor mothers in Britain. Though distinct, this tradition influenced later celebrations. 

The Modern American Holiday

Ann Reeves Jarvis’s influence: Before the Civil War, she organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve health and support families. After the war, her efforts helped reunite divided communities. 

Anna Jarvis’s mission: 

After her mother’s death in 1905, she sought to create a day of personal appreciation, emphasizing handwritten letters and heartfelt gestures rather than commercial gifts. The first official celebration took place in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1908. 

While the holiday has become commercialized—something Anna Jarvis herself later opposed—its core purpose remains: to acknowledge the profound impact mothers have on families and society.

National recognition: 

By 1914, the holiday had spread across the U.S., leading to Wilson’s proclamation establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. 

Why We Celebrate Today

Mother’s Day is now a global celebration dedicated to:

Honoring mothers and motherhood

Recognizing maternal sacrifices and care

Strengthening family bonds

Expressing gratitude, whether through time together, letters, flowers, or simple acts of love.

Every mother is different

https://books2read.com/Bittersweet-Memories-by-Erika-M-Szabo

Not every mother is a happy housewife giving her children a warm home, security, and love. 

In this story, a mother is helplessly lost to addiction but tries to ensure a better life for her newborn daughter. Did she save her precious little girl? Yes, she saved her from a miserable life of an addict. However, life had sad and happy days stored for her. 

Moving from one foster home to another, her life was a revolving door of shattered hopes and disappointments.

As soon as she felt an emotional connection to anyone, the foster kid in her quickly pushed the feeling away. The last thing Elana wanted to do was to get close to someone she would probably never see again. The necessary emotional defense served her well throughout her unpredictable life.

Until she met Luca.

A short excerpt:

On that stormy Christmas Eve twenty-two years ago, a young woman trudged through the unforgivingly cold winds of downtown New York City with a bundle of rags held tightly to her chest. Glass beads of frozen tears clung to the exposed skin of her face. The woman, slightly dazed and clearly distraught, shuffled aimlessly through the snow that clotted the empty sidewalk.

She was uncertain how long she had been pushing her way through the whirling snow, but her raw cheeks were evidence of the stretch of time and the ferocity of the wind. To anyone driving by, she appeared to be just another homeless person: one of the city’s many untouchables caught in the fierce weather, trying to find shelter. They’d give her a callous look and go about their business.

The woman, guided by her numb feet, walked and walked until the dim light of a steeple shone through the flittering blankets of falling snowflakes. Slowly, she approached the steps leading up to the door and stopped.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, lightly rocking the bundle of rags from side to side. “I’m alone, and I have nowhere to go. You’ll be better off without me.” Her soft crying was captured in the air as tufts of tiny ice beads—dissipating clouds of unfathomable despair. They would momentarily hover about her face like a thin mask before being swallowed up by the passing gusts of wind from the barren street.

Slowly, she knelt and set the bundle of rags carefully onto the cathedral step. With warm tears running cold as soon as they leaked down her trembling cheeks, she traced her footsteps back down the street and disappeared into the storm. Never to return.

A few minutes later, a priest of the church stepped out onto the front steps. “Good Lord! It’s cold tonight,” Father Brown, a tall, middle aged man murmured while tossing his long scarf over his shoulder. He shoved his boney hands into the pockets of his long coat and took a moment to silently view the whitewashed buildings with awe. They stood like monolithic snowdrifts, rows of naked windows gleaming with ice, like the eyes of a frozen spider.

Father Brown was on his way to a homeless shelter across town to help with the preparation of Christmas Day dinner. Having no family of his own, it brought him more joy to be surrounded by those in need than to be cooped up in the church all night watching old movies on the ancient black and white TV set in his bedroom. Though he rather enjoyed Jimmy Stewart’s performance in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, he’d seen the movie at least fifty times by now, and serving the unfortunate souls would be a better use of his time. The smiles on their faces, as warm and inviting as the turkey and mashed potatoes he was lucky enough to serve, was more than he ever could have asked for on this holiest of days. Pulling his hand out of his jacket to check his wristwatch, he realized that if he wanted to catch the late bus to the shelter, he’d have to get a move on.

Hurrying down the church steps, he nearly stumbled. He looked down and saw the bundle of rags resting on the bottom step. At first thought to be trash, the priest sidestepped to walk around the heap of clothing when, suddenly, he heard a weak moan emanating from the bundle of rags, muffled by the layers. Curiously kneeling to get a better look, he nearly screamed when the rags began to shiver and move at his touch.

That’s when he realized something living was wrapped up inside. Fearing the worst, he quickly scooped up the bundle and brought it into the protective walls of the cathedral. Clutching the rag bundle to his chest, he made his way to the nearest pew and slowly set it down, whispering a prayer. Under the glow of various lit candles and assisted by the borrowed white light of the full moon leaking through the stained windows, the priest quickly undid the bundle of cloths.

Lying inside the cocoon of dirty rags was a newborn baby. Still pruned, with dried blood covering her skin and matted hair, her blue eyes rolled listlessly, and dry lips slightly parted to expose purple gums and a swollen tongue.

“Sweet Mother Mary!” Father Brown gasped, reflexively tracing the holy symbol of the cross on his body as he raced his way back to his office. Once inside, his shaking hands grasped the phone on his desk and dialed 9-1-1.

“Yes, I need an ambulance sent to St. Patrick’s Cathedral immediately,” the priest begged, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. “I have a dying newborn here. Please, hurry!” Abruptly ending the call, he raced back out to the pew and held the baby in his arms. It hurt his soul to look at the child, shriveled and clinging to life, but he forced his eyes to meet hers.

“Don’t worry, little one,” he said, cradling the dying baby tightly in his arms to keep her warm. “God is watching over you now.”

The ambulance arrived at the church not ten minutes later, and the newborn was immediately rushed to a local hospital. The baby was at the brink of death. She was severely dehydrated, and hypothermia had set in, making her breathing shallow and heartbeat slow.

Unable to trace the parents or relatives of the baby, the hospital contacted child services and arranged for the little girl to be placed in foster care, once she was in better health.

Under the watchful care of doctors and nurses, after fighting a series of infections and neonatal abstinence syndrome because of the drugs she was exposed to in the womb, she slowly recovered. The nurses adored the tiny baby and held her in their arms, cooing to her as much as their busy schedule allowed. By the hospital rules her name was Baby Girl, but the nurses named her Elana.

She was cleared by the hospital a little more than three months later and was assigned a social worker and given an official name: Elana Smith.

https://www.authorerikamszabo.com

Erika M Szabo is known for her diverse range of writings, which span historical fantasy, magical realism, cozy mysteries, sweet romance, and children's literature. Her writing style is both expressive and insightful, transporting readers into the depths of the characters' emotions.