You wouldn't be blamed for thinking that Mother's Day was invented by 1-800-Flowers, Hallmark Cards, a bunch of candy manufacturers, and the owners of Red Lobster.
In fact, its first champion was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." After the Civil War, she saw the possibility of equally deadly conflicts starting in Europe, and so she conceived of a "Mother's Day for Peace." And she wrote a proclamation that was less about being nice to Mom than it was about disarmament:
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
Amazing, huh? One of the reasons for Mother's Day is...radical politics. (Good thing commerce has leeched the meaning from the day --- half the country wouldn't buy a word of what Ms. Howe was selling.)
So much for the Head Butler Moment in History. Now let's deal with the here and now --- what you are going to get Mom for Mother's Day. (And if you do it promptly, it will all arrive in time for the Official Day.)
Yes, by all means, get her out of the house (though maybe not to a restaurant where every table has a mother wearing a corsage and looking like an aging prom date). Yes to flowers. Yes to candy. But yes also to stuff that feeds her heart and head, that says the words that stick in your throat, that gives her something to lean on after a dreary day. This kind of stuff...
BOOKS
Saturday, by Ian McEwan: a happy London family is invaded by the "real" world on the day of the global anti-war march in 2003.
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: He loved her so much he waited for more than 50 years --- until her husband died --- to proclaim his affection.
Everybody Was So Young, by Amanda Vaill: The story of Sara and Gerald Murphy, who befriended Hemingway and Fitzgerald and more or less invented the French Riviera.
Mistress of the Elgin Marbles, by Susan Nagel: Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin (1778 – 1855) was so beautiful, rich and charming that she's the reason the "Elgin Marbles" left Greece.
Educating Alice, by Alice Steinbach: Divorced and over 50 --- and happy about it --- Ms. Steinbach roams the world in search of civilized adventure.
