“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” – Spiritual
Please indulge me, readers, as I take you back to May 11, Mother’s Day. It wasn’t that long ago. Remember what that day was like for you? Dinner? Worship? Travel? Slouched on a couch? Perhaps some or none of those.
Well for yours truly, we two guys sat in a plush restaurant in Atlanta having taken our brides out for a Mother’s Day brunch when some indescribably uncomfortable thoughts took shape in my head; thoughts that ultimately led to the piece you’re now reading.
You see, as I scanned the room, I thought less about who was there, and more about who wasn’t and should have been there. While our waitress served up dishes of incredibly good food my head kept serving up pangs of guilt about my being there.
Chief among other thoughts was the trip we took the week before to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama and the shocking images of the horror and brutalities of slavery in America. The nagging images of what Mother’s Day could have been like for the scores of mothers was hard to shake. I thought about the mothers of Dr. King, Medgar Evers, Emmitt Till, Viola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman ….and I could go on.
But I digress.
As we know, every Mother’s Day celebration just comes and goes. Once Sunday brunch at her favorite restaurant is paid for, days later the bouquet of red roses wilt on the dining table, Mother’s Day cards snapped up at Walmart are placed in drawers with others from years past, and we move back to the humdrum of life and depressing news cycles.
Now if you know me, you know that I can’t let an opportunity to throw in one of my signature “man, why did he go there?” head scratchers, especially if it’s controversial or is repeated so ad nauseum that it’s become almost obligatory and devoid of real meaning. So, we do the perfunctory box checking then it’s see ya this time next year.
So, fasten your emotional seatbelts and join me for some “wondering” about Mother’s Day.
I wonder how happy a day it was for the untold number of mothers who were not showered with flowers, a seat at the table at an exquisite restaurant like we were or received warm hugs and kisses from family members.
I wonder how happy a day it was for the daughters and sons, sisters and brothers of mothers who are no longer with us.
I wonder what kind of a day it was for those mothers who are still with us, those who spent the day alone at home, or in a nursing home, who would have loved nothing better than a call from someone who they either birthed or in some way had an influence on their life.
I wonder about what kind of a day it was for those mothers who packed lunches and sent their young ones off to school only to find out later that their lives were snuffed out while being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. It seems that we’ve grown callously accustomed to their prolonged, high-pitched cries of pain, grief and anger on the evening news. So, what do we do? We switch the channel.
I wonder about those mothers who witness the slaughter of their babies during conflicts on foreign soils – think Haiti, Gaza, Mexico City, the Sudan and other places – when their homes, schools and hospitals are bombarded with missiles or ravaged by roving gangs of thugs and gun toting drug cartels. Burying a loved one is excruciating, but burying a child is a special kind of awful.
I wonder how happy a day it was for mothers on the southern border, many with children in tow or strapped on their backs, who have been caricatured, demonized and politicized by slick politicians to play to a base and to detract from more pressing issues.
I wonder how happy a day it was for scores of “foreign looking” women who live in fear of being snatched up from home, on a street corner, at school or at work, handcuffed and flown off to some prison.
I wonder how happy a day it is for mothers of the incarcerated who sit separated by thick cellophane glass from their sons or daughters on the other side, donned in prison garb while beefy prison guards eye them from a distance.
I wonder how happy a day it was for mothers who had to stomach the news that their daughters were sexually abused by pedophiles, well-heeled political figures and multimillionaire entertainment moguls. (Sorry readers, but I have no desire to tarnish this space with their names. You know who they are).
I wonder how happy a day it was for those men who remain silent, lack courage and are complicit and indifferent to the sufferings of women who are abused by other men.
I wonder how happy a day it was for those largely forgotten women who were motherless because of factors beyond their control who would, nonetheless, have appreciated a “just thinking about you today” call, card or bouquet of roses.
I wonder how happy a day if for those so-called “men” who, for some inexcusable or flimsy reason, did not call their moms on Mother’s Day.
A short “I wonder” pause here before we move on with this lyrical interlude from a years ago piece by Grandmaster Flash, “It makes me wonder sometimes what keeps me from goin’ under.”
“Maybe it is such a day for you,” wrote John Pavlovitz about Mother’s Day in his Our Beautiful Mess newsletter. “It might bring the scalding sting of grief for the empty chair around a table. It might come with choking regret for a relationship that has been severed. It might be a day of looking around at other mothers and other children and feeling the unwelcome intrusion of jealousy that comes with comparison. It might be an annual injury you sustain.”
“This is a man’s world”
Now some may remember the 1966 song, “This is a man’s world” sung by the late soul singer James Brown. Well Mr. Brown, aka “soul brother number one,” if I contextualize your song in our world today, I’ll say that hey, you’re right, it is a man’s world…. and maybe that explains why we’re in the awful mess we’re in today.
Terry Howard is an award-winning writer, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, TheBlackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.
