Moments to capture

Memories to treasure

Beautiful mother

Lady, I bow down to your amazingness!

Anna Jarvis, a devoted daughter, created Mother’s Day in 1908 in West Virginia, United States. Anna’s intent was to honor her recently deceased mother, and mothers everywhere, for their love and dedication to their family and community. The new holiday was envisioned as a time to continue the good work of one’s mother.

The holiday was enthusiastically accepted all over the United States and in places across the globe.  However, the intention of the celebration quickly evolved to be a day to show one’s love and affection to our mother.  Typically showering our mothers with cards, flowers, and or a lovely meal prepared in her honor.

Only recently, in the last decade, has the celebration Mother’s Day become popular in India.  “In the presence of umpteenth number of existing festivals, it is a remarkable achievement for a foreign festival to make its presence felt in the vast and culturally diverse country like India,” according to the Society for the Confluence of Festivals in India.

In India, the already innate and powerful qualities of motherhood are deepened by strong, fixed social customs that mold its society.   It’s no wonder that this holiday is being embraced all across this country steeped in richness of culture.

Take for example the close bond that is created between mother and child by constant physical contact throughout infancy and childhood.  Children share the mother’s bed, may receive a daily oil massage, and may be breastfed until two or three years of age.  When old enough to eat solid food, the child is fed from the mother’s hand.  Even when children are older, mothers make sure that on special occasions, such as a birthday, cake and other special foods come from her hand.  Mothers in India go to all extremes to ensure the vitality of their children, even if it means sacrificing her own nutrition in order to provide food for her family.

How will I honor my own mother on Mother’s Day?  In the truest sense of the holiday, I will ponder the causes that are closest to my mother’s heart and put forth an act of beneficial goodness towards that cause. I couldn’t emulate my mother no matter how hard I tried because of the kind of person she is—compassionate, soft spoken, unbelievably kind and unselfish, self-sacrificing, supportive, resourceful, astute, smart as a whip and endowed with an astounding degree of fortitude. She has always been a role model for me and she is the one I turn to for inspiration whenever I fall short. So I try, not just on this day, but whenever I get the opportunity to do something that pleases her.

As we often say in my culture—we reap the fruits of our past karma. So I must have done something very good in my previous life to have been blessed by a mother like mine. Thank you Ammy! I am what I am because of you. I love you so very, very much!