True History of Mothers Day..

Mothers Day is just 3 days away. For moms whose child or children have died, Mothers Day can be a most difficult holiday and painful reminder of our child's death as others are celebrating. I hope that when you know the true meaning of this day, it will help in some small way. Fact is, that the true history of Mothers Day was not intended to be celebratory, but instead was begun from pain, loss and grief...

Yes, Mothers Day began as a ceremony of bereavement and then as a movement for peace and action to stop the senseless deaths of children everywhere. Mothers Day came as an answer to Julia Ward Howe's proclamation in 1870. So no matter how commercialized the day is treated today, know that the real meaning of Mother’s Day came from pain, loss, and grief — the same things that you and I, as moms who are missing our children who have died before us, are feeling…Cherie Houston

...They were handing out fliers sharing the writing of Julia Ward Howe, first published in 1870 as a protest against the carnage and violence of the Civil War. This was a protest led by women whose sons had died! Bereaved mothers started this tradition of Mothers Day! In the beginning, this was a day of protest, an expression of horrified grief from bereaved mothers who were parted from their sons!!

This is what Julia said in 1870..

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall 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 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 our 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 their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of 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.

Julia Ward Howe, Boston ~ 1870

May you find peace in your heart this Mother's Day and be thankful that we are and always will be moms - from the moment we conceived, we were blessed to be a mom and we will be moms forever...