Mother's Day Celebrations

L.P. – Everyone knows that with the coming of spring and the month of May, endeared Mothers and Grandmothers are celebrated. Foremost, Mother’s Day is a family celebration of love and respect, and celebrated not just within family circles. As has become a tradition, the Ukrainian Women’s Organization – Toronto Branch presents the annual celebration of Mother’s Day at the UNF Hall. This year’s observance was May 14. UWO Branch President Stacey Suessmuth opened this evening with a warm greeting to Mothers and Grandmothers, keepers of our Ukrainian people. At this time, everyone present thought fondly of their own mother which warmed the soul, and brought about memories with tears welling up the eyes not just in one person. Lydia Lelyk prepared a wonderful legend that was read by UNF Toronto Past President, Zenon Chwaluk. The Boyan Women’s Choir performed a selection of Ukrainian songs under the direction of Natalia Fuchylo, and what a pleasure it was to hear poems recited by children whose mouths conveyed gratitude, love and respect to our dearest Mothers.

The main speech for the celebration was given by The New Pathway’s regular columnist Walter Kish and is printed below.

When I was asked several months ago to give this Mother’s Day speech, I must admit I was a bit apprehensive.  After all, not only am I obviously not a mother, but my knowledge of motherhood is about equivalent to my knowledge of quantum physics – that is to say, I kind of understand the general idea but trying to figure out how it works leaves me sorely puzzled and in need of a strong charka!

Besides, what can you say about motherhood without either being clichй or landing yourself in trouble?  After all, everybody loves their mother, at least officially. And if you don’t, you keep it to yourself lest you be branded as some kind of ungrateful degenerate.  Suffice it to say that I am neither of those and that I loved my mother dearly, though as all sons realize after their mother is no longer there, I never loved her close enough to repay her for all the aggravation that I caused her as a “smarkach” or “shybynyk” as she used to call me.  Is there a grown-up son anywhere that doesn’t wish that he had been as good a son as his mama had been a mother? 

I will always feel guilty in the face of my mother’s trials and sacrifices in raising me to be a worthy member of the human race instead of the incorrigible troublemaker and nuisance that was my basic instinctual nature.  I would like to think that in view of what I became, she won that challenge, and what she couldn’t accomplish, my wife Daria has been able to complete the job and keep me in line since my mother left this earth for a well earned rest and reward in the afterlife.  As one of my feminist women friends once put it - most men if left unchecked would wind up spending most of their time either making war, making babies or making hangovers, leaving it up to the women to clean up and handle all the consequences afterwards!

The current practice of celebrating Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May is a rather recent and mostly a North American based phenomenon.  In 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day, formalizing a practice that had begun in the aftermath of the American Civil War as a protest by women who had lost their sons to the carnage of that war. 

I should note that honouring mothers is not altogether a contemporary practice.  The ancient Greeks had an annual festival honouring Cybele, the mother of most of the Greek gods.  The Romans had a similar feast day called Matronalia, honouring Juno, Queen of the Gods and “she who brings children into light”.  On that day, it was custom to give gifts to all mothers.   During the Middle Ages, a Mother’s Day custom evolved in Britain on the fourth Sunday of Lent around a traditional practice of visiting one’s mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on this day. 

Statistics show that Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for most restaurants, obviously giving moms a break from cooking duties.  It is also the day for the most long distance telephone calls and purchases of flowers.  It is the second highest gift giving holiday of the year.  It is obviously at least the one day during the year when we can show our mothers our gratitude for all that they do, and that is considerable.

In trying to understand what motherhood was all about, I did a little research and found no shortage of interesting statistics.  The youngest recorded and authenticated age of a mother giving birth was a Peruvian girl aged five years and seven months who gave birth by Caesarian section in 1939.  A hormonal disorder had caused her to have fully developed ovaries. The oldest recorded age of a mother giving birth was that of a retired school teacher in India who in 2003, gave birth at the age of 65.  The record for most surviving children from a single birth goes to an Iowa woman who gave birth to septuplets in 1997.  The shortest time between births goes to a New Zealand woman who in 1999, had births only 208 days or a little less than seven months apart.  The longest time between births goes to a Welsh woman who had her first baby in 1956, and the next one in 1997, 41 years and 185 days later. The highest number of children born to one mother goes to a Russian woman who between 1725 and 1765 gave birth to 69 children and includes 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. I think that makes this woman worthy to be declared a saint, as well as a phenomenon of nature.

Continued in the next issue