Don’t worry.  I had to look it up too.  It means a song of praise, tribute or thanksgiving.

While there are extraordinary instances of personal sacrifice and love throughout history, there is, to my way of thinking, no greater example of selfless love for another human being than that of a mother for her child.  At the same time, when one spends the first nine months of life in another human’s womb, can there be any more compelling basis for undying love, respect and loyalty?

The very act of becoming a mother and then carrying out the duties of motherhood is a paradox.  A conscious decision is made by a woman to sacrifice, in many ways, youth and freedom to bring forth another human being.  While the act itself is usually engendered by love for her male counterpart, it is the beginning of a strange, uncharted, yet glorious journey, the result of which is new life and, hopefully, a lifelong manifestation of mutual affection between the parents.  Upon birth, the real paradoxes become more evident.

From the moment of birth, it is a mother’s sacred calling to produce an individual while struggling to maintain her own individuality.  She must be everything for the child, yet retain her sense of self.  While the advent of birth is momentary, the process of motherhood is long term and fraught with the lows of exhaustion, boredom and fear and the highs of love, pride, and hope.  All the while, through this most difficult, sometimes thankless, but extraordinary exercise, she is really preparing for the child to leave her.  Of course this happens with all nature’s creatures of which we are uniquely blessed or cursed, depending on your view, with lifelong emotional ties to our offspring.

Throughout both their lives, mother and progeny will likely share the deepest of bonds which may ultimately be one of the great rewards of life.  As Balzac said, “The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you always find forgiveness.”  Who else but a mother will weep at the gallows, or cross for that matter, for even the most heinous of criminals.

Oddly, the term “mother” is vaguely limited, for the duties are more broad than a single title can define.  A mother is, first of all, a teacher and mentor that guides a child through the trials, traumas, and vanities of life.  She is a nurse who washes and binds wounds and soothes the soul.  She is a confidante for the first and important decisions one has to make in life.  She is the number one fan.  She is the adoptive animal keeper who takes on the duties of caring for a pet she didn’t want despite the prior promises of the child.  She is a chauffeur, chef and referee.  For all of this and more, whether spoken often or infrequently, the bond and debt are understood between the two.  You have only to watch the greatest of athletes or the most talented of actors at their moment of glory silently mouth the words for the world to see, “Thanks Mom”.

Although we should honor our mother every day in tangible ways if she is alive, we should also pay our most profound respect in the way we live our lives whether she is alive or not.  Mine is not and maybe because today is the official day to do so, I recall in particular some of my earliest memories are of the sheer joy I felt when I would bring home from school a plaster cast imprint of my small hand, created for the occasion, and take my own money from odd jobs and allowances, bicycle to the Rexall Drug Store across the highway and buy a box of Whitman’s Sampler chocolates.  You would think I had bought her a tiara of diamonds.  I look back on her graciousness through the prism of time and recognize it now for what it was, but every time I walk past the chocolate selection at the drug store it makes me smile.

I know for me that the old Irish toast is quite true:  “The best times of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife, my mother.”

For better or worse, I dedicate these words to Debbie, the daughter of my partner, at whose birth I was present, and her husband Peter who are about to embark on this, the greatest adventure in life, parenthood!  Happy Mother’s Day!

Chris Belland

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