“You know the real meaning of celebrating a birthday if you remember the
sacrifice of giving birth by your mother.” ― Elmitch Alarcio
***
You’ve heard or read it before. But allow me to share it again. One of the Holy Bible’s most quoted examples of the unselfish quality of true mother-love is the story of the two harlots who consulted King Solomon in a dispute involving a newborn infant (check I Kings 3:16-28).
According to the story, each had become mothers at the same time, but one’s baby had died and now each claimed the living child as her own. King Solomon listened to their pleading and when they were finished, called for a sword and ordered, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”
One woman agreed to the King’s plan immediately saying, “Let it be neither mine or thine.” The other woman was aghast at the suggestion for, as the King James version puts it, “her bowels yearned for her son, and she said, ‘O my Lord, give her the living child, and in no way slay it.’”
On the basis of this response, Solomon, imbued with “the wisdom of God,” decreed that the baby be given to this woman, for, he said, her unselfish answer proved that “she is the mother thereof.”
“Mama” is the first word many of us speak naturally, it’s not too surprising that “mother” had a tremendous impact on our vocabulary. Obvious examples include alma mater, mother lode, mother tongue, mother wit, mother-of-pearl, and mother country.
Among French, mother is called mere while Italians and Spaniards call their mom as madre. She is also known as moeder (Dutch), moder (Swedish), mor (Norwegian), matka (Polish), majka (Serbo-Croatian), anya (Hungarian), motina (Lithuanian), mite’ra (Greek), anne (Turkish), el-oum (Arabic), and inay (Pilipino).
W.R. Wallace is credited for penning these words: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” Of course, he was referring to all mothers. Ralph Waldo Emerson has the same view: “Men are what their mothers made them.”
Scientist Thomas Alva Edison has this to say about his mother: “My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me. I felt that I had someone to live for – someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.”
Poet Walt Whitman contends: “I am the part of the woman the same as the man. And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man. And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of a man.”
Now, ladies looking for a husband, please listen to this advice from Fred Emerson Brooks: “Comparing one man with another, you’ll find this maxim true. That the man who is good to his mother will always be good to you.”
In 1974, then American president Richard Nixon resigned from his office. But before that, in a telecast to the nation, he made a tearful farewell to cabinet and staff members. He said, “Nobody will ever write a book probably about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother. She was a saint.”
Much has been written about the sadness of the long “exile” of the late Duke of Windsor from his native England after he abdicated the throne as Edward VIII. Yet, it was revealed that in a private conversation, the man who was the much beloved Prince of Wales and Britain’s most popular monarch, said that he missed neither England nor friends: “My mother was the only person I missed.”
What do daughters say about their mothers? When Carol Channing received a Tony award for her performance in 1964’s ‘Hello, Dolly,’ she said in her acceptance speech: “Thank you mother – for whatever you did.”
Mae West was even more creative. In her dedication to her somewhat ribald autobiography, ‘Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It,’ she wrote: “In loving memory of my mother, without whom I might have been somebody else.”
Perhaps one of the most comprehensive books about mothers was the one written by essayist Harriet Van Horne entitled, ‘Mothers – 100 Mothers of the Famous and Infamous.’ Here are some things you need to know:
· If you doubt that the child shows the man, consider this: eighteen-months-old Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) was being cuddled on Mummy’s lap one day when a tiny fist shot straight up and knocked out Mummy’s teeth.
· Pauline Einstein worried that her son Albert was sub-normal. At the age of nine, he still couldn’t speak plainly.
· Lord Byron’s mother had fleshy jowls, a coarse accent, a fishwife temper and a whisky breath. The boy “suffered blows and kisses in quick succession.” He grew up in an atmosphere of “reproaches and flying plates.”
· When Al Capone was found guilty of tax evasion in 1931 his beloved mother came down to the jail with a hot casserole of spaghetti and cheese. In prison, Capone learned to play the banjo and composed a song entitled “Mother.”
To end today’s column, allow me to quote the words of David C. Gross (Dictionary of 1000 Jewish Proverbs): “God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.”
