As Mother's Day approaches Moms throughout this country cry. Many parents cannot be physically close to their sons or daughters. Telephone calls will not come. Children may desperately wish to speak with mother; however, when "in country," on the battle field, a conversation with Mommy is not possible.
Some guardians are quite near to their children. Perhaps, they hold on more tightly, for the caregiver knows the tot has no other parent to turn to. So many American lads and lasses have one parent in Iraq, in Afghanistan, somewhere far, far, far away from home. Our troops hearts may be with toddlers and teens left behind in the States. Yet, the hands of a service Mom or Dad are often nowhere to be seen or felt by their babies. The children of military men and women clutch photographs, and dream of the day when Mom or Dad will return home.
In the Middle East, young and old also mourn. Many Moms, Dads, sons, and daughters do not have family to cuddle with. Celebrations are reminders of loss. In a war-torn nation, countless are orphaned. Males and females are frequently widowed. People live and then violently, they pass.
A nation need not set a date aside to honor the persons who matter most in an individual's life. Every being loves someone, somewhere. Sadly, as long as there is war, we are all affected by battles. Julia Ward understood this. She saw combat first hand. Latter, she penned the Battle Hymn of the Republic. For this endeavor she is well known. The author, poet, playwright is less famous for her fight. Julia Ward Howe hoped and worked tirelessly to establish a formal date to honor a Mother's Day for Peace.
She saw some of the worst effects of the war -- not only the death and disease which killed and maimed the soldiers. She worked with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides of the war, and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. She also saw the economic devastation of the Civil War, the economic crises that followed the war, the restructuring of the economies of both North and South.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe took on a new issue and a new cause. Distressed by her experience of the realities of war, determined that peace was one of the two most important causes of the world (the other being equality in its many forms) and seeing war arise again in the world in the Franco-Prussian War, she called in 1870 for women to rise up and oppose war in all its forms. She wanted women to come together across national lines, to recognize what we hold in common, above what divides us, and commit to finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. She issued a Declaration, hoping to gather together women in a congress of action.
The verse, while meant to inspire women worldwide, much to the sorrow of many, was carefully sealed away. On the day, we honor motherhood, few remember the female figure who gave us all life. Woe to us all when we brutally wish to take another's persons breath away. In homage to your mother, to my Mommy, to the daughters and sons who bleed needlessly, may I present . . .
Arise then women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears
Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will 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, the 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 voice of a 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 plough 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 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 someplace deemed most convenient
and 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.
May we all truly venerate Mom. Celebrate the mother who bore us and revere the life this woman gave us. Let us love fully. Cherish our fellow man, woman, and child. May we not wait for some unforeseen day when war will be but a whisper. That time will not magically come upon us. If we are to give rise to global harmony, we, all individuals must choose not to engage in combat.
May peace be with you my brother, father, son, and daughter. May Mom's no longer shed a tear. May we all live as family, in peace.
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