Let’s Roar for Mothers and May

If April Showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? No, not pilgrims, as the old joke goes; it brings flowers for Mother’s Day! Florists delight as it’s one of their busiest times of the year. Since the early 1900s, when Anna Jarvis wanted to honor mothers, and President Woodrow Wilson concurred, Mother’s Day has come on the second Sunday in May.

It’s now de riguer to get your brunch reservations on the books or at the very least a bouquet. This is the year to go one step further and deliver breakfast in bed and a tiara.

Hopefully, all moms will have received the vaccine by the end of May, if not by Mother’s Day, as the essential workers they are. 

 All mothers who survived this past year without succumbing to depression from severe cabin fever deserve applause.

“I am woman, hear me roar!”

What working moms did zooming their jobs while supervising the Zoom schooling of their offspring, keeping spirits up, entertaining bored kids, all the while cleaning and cooking and doing laundry while locked down is just the definition of a phenomenal woman.

To all who put on the COVID kilos, you are hereby pardoned. Whatever it took to power through the anxiety of the news, the fear of disease, the inchoate future is OK.

Women have long been the glue that holds the family together, herding up strays for meals, setting limits on unwanted behaviors, enticing all to get along.

Be it single moms, mothers of large broods or of wailing infants, grandmothers who are the helping hand that kept everyone sane, kudos.

I’ve personally seen moms in healthcare who come home, got out of the hazmat suit, shower, and fix dinner. I bear witness to moms who had to move cross country in the pandemic and homeschool depressed kids with no friends or activities. I’ve watched full-time professional women in yoga pants in the street organizing the neighborhood into field days and games.

Every family has issues, from Queen Elizabeth (Bless her heart) to those hanging on by a thread. Mom and Grandmom center them all.

Then some mother us who may not be our biological mothers: aunts, godmothers, special friends.

So this year, instead of Happy Mother’s Day, it might well be the old Helen Reddy tune, “I am woman, hear me roar!”

In the silence of shutdowns, that roar was our saving grace.


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Len Bourland

The views expressed by columnist Len Bourland are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of People Newspapers. Email Len at [email protected].

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