A MOTHERLY LOVE

“So for all of you whose Mamas still nag around,

                                         Love them with all the love you can give,

    For nothing can replace –

                        A Mama’s hand to pick you up when you fall;

                        A Mama’s embrace to keep you warm when you’re cold…

    They LOVE – and that is the most important thing!!”

                                                                               -Marjo Llamas Matias

           

Motherly love is the most intense love there is – sweet, painful, deep, and above all, unforgettable. What is the most admirable about motherly love is that it is totally unconditional – the child does not need to do anything to deserve it. He or she only needs to be. With this kind of love, the child finds security, and the ultimate development of independence and autonomy.

Mothers will always love their children, for they are so much a part of them. Flesh of their own flesh, they will continue to care, watch, cry, worry, and suffer for them, even if the son or daughter is married with a family of his or her own. Even if ten thousand miles separate them, even if she is taken for granted, the mother continues to love and pray. As the tagalog saying goes:

“Matitiis ng anak ang magulang, nguni’t ang ina ay hindi matitiis ang anak.”

It is quite difficult for a child to ever repay or reward a mother’s love – this is one debt in human relations that can never be fully repaid. It is in the quality of the children’s lives – in the meaningful, loving way they conduct their lives, that the mother finds fulfillment and satisfaction for all the years she has given them. It is said that a child’s personality is formed in the first few years of life. If this is so, then the kind of person one is, is in a large measure due to the influence of one’s mother who was the closest mother then.

Every son, every daughter has a mother, and to all those who still have them around, we say with Marjo – love them, love them while you still can. For soon enough, God will beckon to them and give them the rest, the peace they so richly deserve.