A Mother is the Holiest Thing Alive

I grew up in the shadow of a memorial to motherhood. In 1938, the Ashland Boys Association–a homecoming organization for the men and boys who had to leave our rural Pennsylvania home when the anthracite coal operations began to dry up in the early 20th century–erected a bronze on granite monument based on James McNeil Whistler's 1871 painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother–more commonly known as Whistler's Mother.

We always knew its name, if only as a landmark reference point, but never gave much thought as kids as to why it was there, or what it meant as we climbed its elaborate stairways for games of war and tag after spending whatever coins we might muster on Tasteykakes and Guers Iced Tea at the nearby convenience store.

We barely noticed it while waiting for the ceremonial lighting of the giant Christmas tree that would stand tall at its base each winter, looking–to us at least–every bit as grand as the infinitely more famous incarnation three hours east at NYC's Rockefeller Center, for which we'd gather around our family’s television sets each 4th of December to witness the lighting.

The big event, of course, took place on the Saturday before Labor Day, when we'd gather in the surrounding area for the ABA parade, an affair very similar to Manatee County's DeSoto Grand Parade in both its size and blue-collar spectacle. Back then, none of us were aware that the parade's origins were owed to the working man's holiday and a tradition in which those displaced sons would return home for a weekend visit, candy and a card in tow to give to their beloved mothers.

We were all aware, however, that prominently inscribed at the front of its marble base, were the words "A Mother is the Holiest Thing Alive." I only later learned that those words were borrowed from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, The Three Graves. A Fragment Of A Sexton's Tale. It wasn't until I returned in 2013 for my grandmother's funeral, that all those years of observing such reverence for motherhood fully took root.

These days, I never return home to Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania without paying the monument a visit, and I'm humbled by the way an 8-foot tall slab of sculpted metal and the tranquil grounds that surround it feel so much bigger than they did back then, seeming to eclipse even the town itself. Taking it in immediately calls to mind my Nana, and I never fail to leave a few tears to fall on that weathered granite in her honor. The effortless manner in which they are absorbed always seems to suggest that they are but a drop of rain in an ancient ocean, and that I am just one more of so many men mourning the eternal absence of a sacred woman who helped him to become a man.

As I get older and think about the world we'll be leaving to our own children, I cannot help but think that we're in danger of losing touch with the reverence we've historically had for the only sex blessed with the ability to bring life into our world. After all, an orchard is only as good as the trees that bear its fruit, and those trees' vigor is but a reflection of the stewardship we’ve shown them.

I have had the privilege in this life to have come to know so many women who have done honorable service to the term mother that it is indeed one of the few things that give me hope that we might be able to raise up a nation of children capable of meeting the immense demands of the age we've suddenly found ourselves catapulted into. If humanity improves in our time, mark my words, we will have mothers to thank for it.

In recent years, I’ve watched my sisters turn into mothers, seen my only son grow up in adoration of the woman who bore him, and currently get to watch a younger generation of women in our family–themselves the age we were when we played on those steps–provide glimpses of yet another generation of matrons to come. As dark as recent days have been, on this Mother's Day, it gives me great comfort to genuinely believe that it will be the mothers and matriarchs of this nation who save us. Coleridge had it right, a mother really is the holiest thing alive.