Happy Mother’s Day

No deep messages this weekend about religious stuff or anything that’s pissing me off. So instead, after raining on the Duggars’ parade and their huge and still-growing family with my previous post, just a simple shout-out here to all the mothers who put themselves out there emotionally, spiritually and physically for their kids. Both my wife and I lost our mothers relatively young (in their 50s), and it’s been a big hole in our lives, particularly with a very young girl who will never know the joy of having grandmothers doting all over her.

I love my wife for being my partner, lover and friend—and for making me a father, but today, I want Mrs. Blue to know that I love her most right now for being a great mom to our girl and to our son. To any other women I know who are mothers, you all rock! Keep the love and keep the faith.

And to close today’s message, a few nice quotes about motherhood:

• God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers. (A Jewish Proverb)
• The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. (Honore de Balzac)
• To understand a mother’s love, bear your own children. (Chinese Proverb)
• Mother is the name for God on the lips and in the hearts of little children. (William Makepeace Thackeray)
• A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. (Washington Irving)
• To nourish children and raise them against odds is any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. (Marilyn French)
• No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. (Florida Scott-Maxwell)
• A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. (Tenneva Jordan)
• Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to “jump at de sun.” We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. (Zora Neale Hurston)
• By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class. (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
• Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own. (Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons)
• Giving kids clothes and food is one of thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people (Dolores Huerta)
• It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding. (Erma Bombeck)
• Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. (Meryl Streep)