Mother

"To her who loves us before she meets us"

- The inscription on Monumento a la Madre in Mexico City

But her uneasiness increased. Since her son's strangeness was not clarified with time, her heart became more and more sharply troubled with a foreboding of something unusual. Every now and then she felt a certain dissatisfaction with him, and she thought: "All people are like people, and he is like a monk. He is so stern. It's not according to his years."

She listened and shook her head dolefully, feeling something new, unknown to her, both sorrowful and gladsome, like a caress to her troubled and aching heart. It was the first time she had heard such language about herself, her own life. It awakened in her misty, dim thoughts, long dormant; gently roused an almost extinct feeling of rebellion, perplexed dissatisfaction--thoughts and feelings of a remote youth. She often discussed life with her neighbors, spoke a great deal about everything; but all, herself included, only complained; no one explained why life was so hard and burdensome.

"Lord in heaven, have mercy!" the mother muttered again, shuddering with the cold and horror of an unformed fear.

- Random Lines from Mother by Maxim Gorky, 1906

Footnotes:

This is a tribute for my Mother who turned 51 today. I can't help think about all those painful sacrifices she made, to make me a better person. Utterly selfless and unconditionally committed, she stood like a strengthening force in whom I found a lot of support, courage and value. I pray to God to give her the strength for the most burdernsome task, which is to be able to continue to bear the utterly incorrigible spoiled brat of me, to say the least!