By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
My daughter sent me flowers for Mother’s Day. I wish she hadn’t, they’re so ridiculously expensive and she could have used that money elsewhere, but I understand. I remember being busy raising kids and keeping things humming, far from my parents. I remember calling a florist on Mother’s Day, pressed for time and down to the wire.
I recall that the floral arrangement pleased my mother enormously — who ran out to get plastic flowers to replicate it for posterity — and so, in memory of her and gratitude that I am loved and remembered by my own girl-child, I too am pleased. (But I wish she’d bypassed this multi-billion dollar buying binge, aka the Hallmark Holiday, and saved her money for more important things. And now that I think about it, isn’t that what most mothers who fret about their children’s wellbeing would say? )
The woman who succeeded in convincing the nation to establish Mother’s Day in 1908 was single and had no children. Her name was Anna Jarvis, and it was her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, who lit a fire under the mothers of West Virginia during the Civil War, founding Mothers’ Day work clubs to improve sanitation and lower infant mortality, as well as to tend wounded soldiers, Union and Confederate.
After the war, Anna Reeves Jarvis established a Mothers Friendship day, bringing together the mothers of soldiers from both sides, attempting reconciliation and renewed dedication to peace. Jarvis was unyielding in her determination that women, particularly mothers, could align themselves to impact their community toward resolving conflict by peaceful means, and particularly by mourning and remembering their fallen children.