"Happy Mothers Day!"

Canada was the first state to follow the tradition of USA Mother's day celebration. They started celebrating Mother's day as a national holiday only a year after the celebration started in USA. This was 1909 when the Canadian government adopted the trend of Mother's Day celebration in USA. The pattern of celebration is almost the same as in USA. Family members spend time together, present gifts to mothers and prepare special meals for them. 

Mothers are given full day off from house holding chores. However, this celebration is not confined in family bonds only. Children present gifts to their grandmothers and those whom they feel are motherly for them. Those out station or living abroad specially come to their homes to see their mothers and thank them for their matchless love and support. Those who can't visit their mothers send them online greetings, gift parcels and make phone calls. Both the telephone lines and the internet are laden with calls because children use these accessories to wish their mothers on their special day. Since Canada is technologically advanced country, the height of competition in almost all of the industries is beyond imagination for common man.

Just a little fact for everyone! Mothers Day comes once a year, when it should be every day! Mothers are our sun, moon, and stars. They show us the meaning of life, and set us down the path that is the best they know. 

I was lucky enough to have a mother that cared for everyone, sometimes she may have cared to much, and forgot about herself, and her own needs. Growing up in a home where my mother was raising her own children, as well as her sisters (2 sisters) children, I learned that love comes from so many places. To sacrifice your own life to nurture and love another, is not a sacrifice it is a gift, a gift of the ability to love. To love only the way that a mother can. You don't have to give birth to love, you just have to give yourself, your heart, and life to another being. It's about never being selfish, and always being kind. 

I remember nights sitting up in my room and feeling anger for my mothers decisions of taking on the world as her own world was falling apart, now at the age of 32 I finally get it! The idea of giving another person a life of love, and a chanced of happiness is all that life is about. The ability to watch a child grow, and learn to love, and feel is the greatest gift of all. Whether the child is yours or not. The animosity I felt so many years ago feels so small now. And I admire my amazing mother for it today. At one time we had 9 children in our home, that sounds crazy right? Well not to her, she always has crafts for us to do, amazing dinners (she even taught me how to cook), we all played sports, and attended church. And we never went without. All of us girls were always well dressed and had the best hair styles in school!! My mother was always the room mother in my class and helped with class and school functions...

With all of that being said, I must say, I was lucky to have a mother like her. A mother who gave her all, not only to her own children, but to others as well. A mother who opened her home and her heart to others, and lost so much at the same time. There is not one person on the face of this earth as selfless and giving as Debbie (Benjamin) Latterell. 

To the woman who made me who I am today, I love you. I may not have taken the step of motherhood, but I know when I do, I will the be the best mother in the world. This is for you:

Before I was myself you made me, me
With love and patience, discipline and tears,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be
And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Relinquishing your powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.
And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.

Turing 32 this year has made me aware of so many things, it's not what you do, or what you make, it's the lives you impact, and most of all the love that you show... Thank you Mom for teaching me these values. I have so much more than most because of this. And I may not be a mother YET, but mom when I am, I promise, I will make you proud, and give your love, and so much more...