Julia Ward Howe was an early abolitionist, poet, and women's rights activitist. She is perhaps best known for having penned the words for The Battle Hymn of the Republic. But she also worked tirelessly for world-wide peace and for women's rights. In 1870, she wrote the following asking women to come together and promote world peace.
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of 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 women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.
My mother is a heroine in her own right. Having had possibly the most wonderful man in the universe as her husband, she was unfortunately left to saddle the responsibility of continuing to raise all 5 of us without him when he suddenly and tragically (at least to us) died of an MI at the age of 50. At that time, my younger brother was 8 and my older brother was 21. There were 3 girls sandwiched in between the 2 boys. My older brother had just graduated from college the summer Dad died, and Mom was left alone to finish raising her kids by herself - a task she did not feel up to.
After Dad died, in many ways, my mother truly blossomed. She was always bright and articulate, but never very sure of herself. Without him to lean on, she had to become more sure of herself and more assertive. She had not finished her college degree, because at the time, teachers were in such short supply that you could get a teaching certificate after 3 years and then teach in elementary school. She did that and then, having grown up in the flatlands of North Dakota, decided she wanted to spend some time near the mountains of the west. Naturally, she then took her first job as a kindergarten teacher in Green River, Wyoming. She assumed that there was a river running through the town (hence the name) and that the town itself would be beautiful and mountainous. Her only previous experience with Wyoming was having visited Yellowstone with her family as a child. Imagine her surprise when she alit from the train in dusty, flat, desolate Green River. Poor Mom. She said she had to force herself not to cry.
She met my father there (he was a teacher as well) and for that, she is eternally grateful.
Two years prior to my father's death, Mom made the fortuitous decision to finish her college degree. Dad was exceedingly proud of her in every way, but especially at how hard she worked to accomplish this. Sadly, he died about 2 months before she received her degree.
After his death, she not only rose to the task of finishing what they had started handily, but she managed to put all 5 of us through college - as well as putting 1 through medical school, 1 through law school, and 1 who went on to get a master's in architecture. And she did this with only his life insurance money (which was not as much as many people have, because he had heart disease and was unable to get as much as he wanted) and her salary as a teacher.
In many ways, I feel like a failure when I compare myself to my mother. Her strength and ability to put her children ahead of herself and to get the most important things done just amaze me.
She is, of course, not young any longer and she has had some devastating health problems, but somehow her will to live keeps managing to help her get through each crisis. She is also one of the biggest worriers on the planet. It must be the Irish in her or maybe the Catholic - probably both. Although I wish she would quit watching and reading the news because it upsets her so, she will never do so. So she is becoming more and more despondent over the state of the world. (Aren't we all?)
At any rate, what I would really like to give my mother for Mother's Day is peace in the world, an end to the suffering of so many (such as in Darfur and the Gulf Coast) and the return of the country to a democracy. I can't even begin to do that, but I continue to pray for it nonetheless.
Alas, another Mother's Day approaches and I (once again) have not a clue what to give my mother to show her how much I love her and how very important she is to me.
I wish that the words of the original "Mother's Day for Peace" by Julia Howe would resonate with enough women the world over that change would be effected. I wish it were that simple.