It's Mother's Day 2008. It's the 100th anniversary of this holiday.

I got a fabulous present this Mother's Day and that was having my family around me. They lead very, very busy lives and it is a huge present on their part when they give me some of their time. I truly understand how precious a gift it is. I used to live that life. It is only now that I have the wisdom to see both sides of the fence. Knowing your mother really wants to see you and having a task list 4 miles long, and feeling stressed to the max. When your children are young they need you, when you get old, you need them. It is part of the reversing of the roles.

We are luckier than most in that we can still be there for my child. I say we because Tony has been both father and mother to our son. Our child really doesn't need us but when we are able to help to be his "parents" it is has sweetness that is beyond describing. For us parenting was also such a joy. Our child was never a source of stress. We like to think it was the way we parented but we brought a really extraordinary person into this world.

He found an angel who is beautiful, brilliant and an incredible mother. They have given us the ultimate prize of parenting - a grandchild.

Here is some interesting background about this day from Wikipedia.

Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace.

Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided 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 bosom of the 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 out 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 at 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.

And so here we are in 2008 with a Mother running for president. Hillary I salute you. You have my vote.