News

Happy Mother’s Day

Written by Tony Mussari
Edited by Kitch Loftus-Mussari
Copyright 2013
Mussari-Loftus Associates, LTD
The Face of America Project
faceofamericawps.com

During her interview with Marty Wolff for the Business Builders Show, I heard Liz Zygmunt say three things that made a lot of sense to me:

Motherhood is the most important job;

Being a mother takes everything you have;

Most women are not superwomen. Speaking from experience, I could not do it all.  Moreover, the idea that women can have it all has been discredited.

Elizabeth Zygmunt is an experienced journalist, a respected editor and a committed community leader in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Ask her if these accomplishments are important, and she will most likely say yes, but after a short pause, she will tell you that being a mother is much more important.

Thoughts about Mothers and Motherhood

Her emphasis on motherhood got me thinking, and so I did some research to find out what other prominent people thought about the role their mothers played in their life.

This is a short list of my discoveries:

1. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me. Thomas Edison

2. Mother has said that she sees us more as friends than as daughters. That’s all very      
nice, of course, except that a friend can’t take the place of a mother. I need my
mother to set a good example and be a person I can respect, but in most matters         
she’s an example of what not to do. Anne Frank

3. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. Abraham Lincoln

4. To have had a Mother—how mighty! Emily Dickinson

5. Men are what their mothers made them. Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart – a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. Mark Twain

7, The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom. Henry Ward Beecher

8. To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Maya Angelou

9. Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not. James Joyce

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., put his thoughts about motherhood in rhyme:

Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.

In 1915, Howard Johnson and Theodore Morse wrote these beautiful and poignant lyrics for their song Mother

M Is for the Many things she gave me,
O Means only that she’s growing Old.
T Is for the Tears she shed to save me,
H Is for her Heart of purest gold.
E Is for her Eyes with love light shining,
R Means Right and Right she’ll always be.
Put them all together, They spell MOTHER.
A word that means the world to me.

I don’t know about you, but all of the above describe the mothers God gave Kitch and me. We are eternally grateful for all they did to help us find our way.

The words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., apply. Our mothers carried the key to our souls in their bosoms.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers we met on our Face of America Journey.  You represent America at its very best!

Please provide feedback to:

tony.mussari@gmail.com