God/Mother
What to say?
No flowery prose or sweet words can ever convey what it is to be a mother, to be the son to one, or to be the husband of one. And if papa’s are honest, one of the greatest things in life….no, wait…THE greatest thing in life is one that we’re not capable of. Giving it.
Yet, far surpassing the physical act of giving birth is the bond between a mother and her children and it is a mystery and wonder that fathers can only marvel at, yet never experience. And for that they deserve a day when we kneel and pay respects to the women in our lives. The moms and the wives. The bearers of life. The guardians of ours. For we are sons as well.
There are few things in this world that will affect a man the way his mother will. Yet, they go mostly uncelebrated and unacknowledged for the years of worry and toil and stress they undergo for the sake of the little lives they bring into this world. What a phenomenally rewarding and terribly heartbreaking position it must be. Jealous and awestruck at the same time, I am, because I can never attain that.
And yet, searching for words to convey the sanctity of what it is to be a mother is a daunting task. It’s so very difficult to find a way to express exactly how important and how all encompassing a role it is.
While we as fathers bear responsibility and much more, it is the mothers that bear our heartbreak and pain, our agony and torment, our suffering and our scars. Wordlessly and quietly they go through their lives bearing the weight of their children in silent worry and unspoken panic at times. To be sure they share the joys and happiness and I am in no way suggesting otherwise.
I’m suggesting that in our busy, often selfish lives we overlook the significance of her role.
There are countless stories throughout history of men dying, especially in battle. In their final moments on earth, with their last labored breaths the words they utter are ‘mom’. From the earliest of times through our days, there are not just tales, but studies done, of this ‘phenomena’ they call it. And I don’t think it’s any real mystery at all. And it may seem a melancholy way to demonstrate the importance of the role, but I can think of none that are so viscerally demonstrative of what being a mother is, especially in the eyes of her child.
Yours is the word we first utter after we are ushered into this world usually. It is the word we cry in the midst of the night when the monsters come calling. When we fall from our bikes and tumble down stairs, And, as grown men, in the midst of the hell that is battle as we slip from the bonds of this world, your name is the comfort we seek.
“Mama”
That’s more than significant. It’s holy.
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
