[/caption]by Carol Forsloff - Mother's Day is a time to celebrate mothers all over the world. In the United States families honor mothers with dinners out, candy, bouquets of flowers and other wonderful things, but what happens to the nurturing women who never had children or lost the ones they had?
For one thing, those women who give in the service of children, of which there are many, many of these wonderful folk, need to be recognized just as we recognize our mothers. So many women who wanted children may never have had them, while others may have lost children; and still others may never have married or had children for a variety of reasons. But there are teachers, childcare workers, women who nurture and guide and take the time to love children not their own. These too are women to honor.
I am fortunate to have "borrowed" a number of children, now adults, over the years to compensate for the ones lost. A number of these young adults have mothers of their own, but older women sometimes fill a niche here and there that may fit just right for them. A single mother can't be all things to all people, so these niches are the places other women fill. They are there to love and not to take away from the mother who gave birth or raised a child but supplement that love in special ways. Each one is a "child of mine."
There are also children in need in every part of the world, helpless children, children with disabilities, children who are "nobody's child" because there is no one to care or to support their needs or their families are too poor to provide for them. There are many social service agencies of many different types who offer foster care programs that allow "mothers" to give in wonderful ways to one of these needy children.
Mothers Day is a time to honor giving itself, loving that comes in ways that nourish the very roots of our being; and it is that we all must hold up in our daily lives, and on Mothers Day, to declare the value of that so that others do the same.
