Day 60 Mothers & Sons; or, How to Keep Your Own Faith

My mother believed thoroughly in mothering obsolescence. She felt strongly that if she did a good job as a mother, we, her four children, would grow up and out of our need for her. We did, but not quite in the way she had wished.

She died 23 years ago, and I have soldiered on since, the oldest person in my family from long before I should have been. I am now older than she was when she died. Her three sons, my younger brothers, have gone on to their own lives as well.

I wasn’t quite sure how I would put together writing about the coronavirus pandemic that is leading our world at the moment and motherhood, but I wakened this morning thinking of my mother and the remarkable things she did when she was here, and, my faith would tell me, must be continuing wherever she is now.

Here’s where my memories took me.

All the characters in this world drama we have no choice but to witness right now had mothers. Every single one of them.

Mrs. Trump held Donald to her breast and was thrilled he was here, I’m sure. Add to her, Mrs. Pence, Senhora Bolsonaro, Mrs. Kushner, Mrs. Fauci, Mrs. Flynn, Mrs. Barr. Mothers and sons, all of them. Mothers and sons.

The history of Mother’s Day is little known. Here’s a quickie Wiki.

“The modern holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. St Andrew’s Methodist Church now holds the International Mother’s Day Shrine.

“Her campaign to make Mother’s Day a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Ann Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War, and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her mother by continuing the work she started and to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”

Mother’s Day was created because of a peace activist.

That peace activist created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

Peace and Public Health.

More than a century later, the millions of mothers since then notwithstanding, we as a nation still stand in dire need of the same two things. Peace and public health.

From the day George W. Bush was elected to the Presidency, I prayed for him. Yes, daily. It will not surprise you to learn that I didn’t like him, his glib elitism, his flip commentary, or his politics, but pray for him I did. Every day he was president.

Now, why would I do that? I didn’t do it for him, that’s for sure. I did it for me. I did it because I know, as sure as my hair is red, that what I hate—and yes, I mean hate—only contributes to the hate that is the rising undertow in the exponentially-expansive shadow of our society.

I choose daily not to add to the hate. So instead, I prayed for him. Simply, “God bless you, Mr. Bush.”

When I would read about things he’d said or done that I judged, yes, judged, as foolish, or thoughtless, or stupid, or downright criminal, I had a refrain installed in my brain, a default setting, if you will. God bless you, Mr. Bush.

My antipathy for the First Frauds Family, starting with the Narcissist-in-Chief and cascading on down has been unmistakable. Then along comes Mother’s Day.

All those men have mothers who were delighted to birth them. It’s a rare occurrence when a baby isn’t an occasion for joy.

I watched Alec Baldwin, in his home, do the cold open on “Saturday Night Live” last night. He gave an imaginary commencement speech to The Class of Covid-19. It was, as expected, utterly appalling.

Judge John Hodgman has a humor Q & A column in the Sunday Times. Someone wrote asking about mask protocols for online video games. Here’s part of his response.

“... real masks help keep your potentially infected saliva on your own potentially infected face. Still, lots of people don’t wear them, I guess because they think masks are merely symbolic. They’re right. Covering your face is a symbol: that you belong to a civilization and that you’re not necessarily a superbeing whose contrarianism can outthink a virus.”

Picture after picture has appeared from all over this country showing us alleged leaders who refuse to wear masks in real life in real time. Contrarianism cannot out-anything a virus. I can’t help thinking that if their mothers were around to scold them, particularly on Mother’s Day—that holiday invoked over peace and public health—they might be ashamed enough to wear masks. Like the humans they were elected to serve.

Masks aren’t symbolic in the face of a pandemic. They’re only too real. I can’t help but think that those who refuse to wear the masks we all must wear are aware that they are wearing such other drastic masks that they needn’t cover their true faces.

It feels to me like a Dorian Grey government. There’s a room somewhere, a gallery of horror portraits, showing the true faces of these men who do not care as much for us as they do for the almighty dollar. And, above all, themselves and their cronies.

Here’s the further, ironic history of Anna Jarvis and Mother’s Day. “In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother’s Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers.

“Although Jarvis was successful in founding Mother’s Day, she became resentful of the commercialization of the holiday. By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother’s Day cards. Jarvis believed that the companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s Day, and that the emphasis of the holiday was on sentiment, not profit. As a result, she organized boycotts of Mother’s Day, and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved.

“Jarvis argued that people should appreciate and honor their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their love and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-made cards. Jarvis protested at a candy makers’ convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and at a meeting of American War Mothers in 1925. By this time, carnations had become associated with Mother’s Day, and the selling of carnations by the American War Mothers to raise money angered Jarvis, who was arrested for disturbing the peace.”

I like to think that the mothers of these men who are so flagrantly betraying the public trust are disturbing the peace in their sons’ dreams even now. If my son had lived, and were behaving the way they are, I sure would. I’d be in his face all the time. These sons are ignoring their mothers.

On the 24th of March, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted, “My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable” in response to the suggestion that we let those who are the eldest of our society die to save the economy.

No one’s mother is expendable. Perhaps that’s why, when my son died the day he was born, I was graced by a visit, really, many visits from the Cosmic Mother of Mothers. One day about nine months into my recovery, which was going so much less than well that it could have been characterized as completely stalled, a woman arrived in my mind’s eye during meditation.

She said, “Hi.” I said, “Hi.” No recognition.

She said, “I’m Mary.” I said, “Hi, Mary.” Still, nothing.

She said, “Uh, Jesus’ mom?” And then she vanished.

I shook my head, opened my eyes, and went about my day with a slightly lighter heart. She checked on me every day for nine months. Never speaking again. Just present. Faithful.

When nine months had passed, and I was much better, She said, “Do you want to know how I did it?”

I knew instantly what She meant. How She let her son go, after he died. “Yes,” I said.

She paused and locked her compassionate eyes onto mine. “I gave Him away.”

That was the day I gave my Isaac away and began, truly, to heal. Since then, Mother’s Day can be a little tender, but nowhere near what it was right after he died. In those days, if I came upon the baby aisle in a grocery store, I was known to utterly dissolve and leave a full cart of groceries in the store because I could not pull it back together.

So, you see, I relate to the swelling heart of a mother for her child. I’m a mother, but I’m not a parent. It’s why I think my faith pulled me to praying for GWB. Because he had a mother. It’s why I pray for the idjits acting out in the world right now. They had mothers. Even Osama bin Laden made some mama happy.

I like to think that sons have an aversion to disappointing their mothers. Most do, anyway. Praying for these men who are steering us so wrong is the only way I can keep my own faith intact. That’s why I do it daily, mostly with the Cosmic Mother in my heart. When you see an image of Her wearing a crown of stars, that’s Her as the Queen of Peace.

So, Happy Mother’s Day, Mama. Happy Mother’s Day, Mary. Happy Mother’s Day, Mrs. Trump. Maybe the boys’ll do better next year.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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