Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 13, the day when we celebrate our mothers and grandmothers with brunches or breakfasts, flowers or a phone call for those of us who live too far away to travel.
The day also offers those who have lost their mother a chance to reflect on her influence on their lives.
The celebration of mothers and motherhood is one facet of humanity that unites our species despite all our linguistic and cultural differences.
A mother goddess is a key figure present in ancient religious history from the Egyptian Isis, Sumerian Ninsun, Hindu Durga and Norse Frigga to the Aztec Coatlicue and Celtic Danu. The Greeks had three deities depending on the era: The primordial deity Gaia, the Titan Rhea and the more well-known Olympian Hera, while the Ephesians in what is now Turkey worshipped the Greek huntress Artemis as a mother figure well into the early Byzantine era. The early Chinese prayed to Bixia Yuanjin, who herself was assisted by a host of minor mother goddesses specialized to protect midwifery, breast-feeding or prevent childhood illnesses.
The veneration of mothers predates the rise of civilization. The Venus of Willendorf, discovered in Germany in 1908, is a four-inch tall limestone figurine with enlarged hips and breasts like those of a pregnant woman carved by a Paleolithic artisan between 28,000 and 25,000 B.C. The Venus of Hohle Fels, of similar design, is estimated to be about 40,000 years old.
It would make sense that our earliest art would celebrate our mothers: Ancient people witnessing the changes a woman’s body underwent that culminates in the birth of a child, a new member of the tribe, must have been seen as magic, certainly worthy of veneration and reverence.
Mothers and grandmothers are often the matriarchs who hold families together as children grow up and move away to the far corners of the globe.
My maternal grandmother is still the focal point of our family, bringing together her seven children several times a year. Even now in her 90s, she is still spry and full of life. She regularly writes to me through a journal, telling me about her life growing up in suburban Atlanta in the 1930s.
I am probably closer to my mother than any other member of my very large extended family, even though I only see her about once or twice a year. Last year, we took a two-week vacation through Scotland, visiting five cities, four battlefields, 18 churches and cathedrals and 25 castles — and thousands of narrow stairs.
She’s in much better shape than I am, but I followed everywhere she led because that’s what good sons do. We spent most of the trip joking and laughing because even after all these years, we are best friends who can still find humor everywhere.
My fiancée will become a mother in June, just a little too late for this Mother’s Day. Yet witnessing her body change as she prepares to give birth to our first child has been amazing. I can understand the reverence early humans placed on the process of motherhood: From feeling the first kick, to seeing the growing belly, to watching our unborn daughter roll and stretch beneath the skin of my fiancée’s abdomen.
Despite all our advances of science, technology and civilization, I can appreciate what our ancestors found awe in 40,000 years ago — an unchanged and complex process is still just as wondrously beautiful.
We sincerely hope you have enjoy this Mother’s Day. If you do something special with your mother on Sunday, want to honor your late mother or mother who lives far away, email us a photo to editor@ larsonnewspapers.com or send us one via Facebook and we’ll post them to our Facebook page next week.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
