I’ll make a deal with you. It is this:
that for every single rose you give to a mother walking through your Sunday morning doorway, you say a prayer for the child whose parent left him alone and hungry in the evening shadows night after night. You’ll find him over there, wearing the mask of an old man with moist eyes;
that for every saccharine hymn to mothers, you sing with their mothers a funeral dirge for the babies lost before they were born;
that for every round of applause for the mothers who made it to church with their great-grandchildren, you offer a quiet prayer for the terrified-looking teenager over there;
that for each pink carnation handed out you will lay a flower on the grave of a mother lost this year, whose children turn away from the receiving line and slip out of the back door (and if that child is you, and you cannot turn away, please accept my condolences);
that for every smiling compliment to motherhood you offer a silent prayer for the pregnant woman worried about her test results and her future as a mother of an unknown child;
that for every mother you praise, you give thanks for a father who takes up the slack, and the fathers who mother together;
that for every mother whose name you remember, you remember the mothers who do not know their own children, who gave them up or gave them away or never call them any more; and remember their children, too.
If you will do these things, I will celebrate with you, with your mothers and your children, I will smile and sing and between us, we will see to it that the others know, too, that they are beloved.