May 9, 2021 we are absolutely thrilled to celebrate Mother's Day.
A Mother is the one person whose value is undisputed. We can all agree that our mothers were perfect ideal gifts to each of us. But do we know how Mother's Day USA originated? One pillar of appreciation for mothers in our country was Ann Jarvis. As a mother of 11, of which 7 children died before adulthood, Ann dedicated her energy to preserving Life. As her house was near a battlefield during the Civil War, Ann organized mothers who attended to both Union & Confederate wounded oldiers. She passed on her passionate concern for post-war America to her daughter Anna who in 1908 helped campaign into law this day of recognition for mothers. The second pillar was Julia Ward Howe, a volunteer for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, whose Mothers' Appeal, she hoped, would unify mothers globally to strive for peace. She put her words "Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all we have taught them about charity, mercy, patience" into practice in a time before vaccines and organized healthcare. As we remember our own Mothers in this pandemic era-let us be real champions for Life, Faith and our Mothers! We certainly have master teachers (those among us of Polish descent) on how to love our Mothers. Like Juliusz Slowacki, our unmatched classical 19 c. Romanticist herald. Very close to his mother Salomea, he put it like this in an excerpt from Ode to my Mother( pol. Do mojej Matki) as Russian oppression forced him to emigrate from Poland to Paris: "Not only once will your heart tremble, my beloved Mother, seeing those who are pardoned and returning. Cursing my thick skin and so great steadfastness in my wild intentions. Forgive me then oh my dearest caregiver, that I have so deeply fallen and concealed myself. Forgive, for if it weren't that I'd have had to desert God, then You I would not have forsaken". Or our other Mother's faithful son, Jozef Pilsudski, one of the Fathers of Poland's regained 1918 independence-who ordered that his heart be laid to rest next to his Mother at Wilno's Rossa cemetery. Niech Zyja Mamy!
B. Czerkawski
Photo shows our PMA painting My Mother by Bernard Frydrysiak