There are mothers to mothers. Pelagia, the mother of the homonymous novel by Máximo Gorki, is not the same as Jocasta, the mother (and later wife) of Oedipus, the king of Thebes. Or to clarify – referring to the old Mexican cinema – Sara García and Libertad Lamarque were never the same. The first went down in history as a mother so glorious that she became a grandmother’s chocolate and the second as a languid, suffering and tango mother who in the painful film library of her life was cheated on by one husband after another and separated from her children. Without remedy.
To define, we could get picky, take refuge in the Academy and thus discover that there are many definitions. In the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language we would find that “mother” is a word that comes from the Latin mater and means female that has given birth; female with respect to her son or sons; title that is given to certain nuns in convents, hospitals and retreat houses; a woman who is in charge of the government in whole or in part; but also the womb in which the fetus develops or the cause, root or origin from which something comes.
Searching in a different book and with national (and patriotic) spirit when opening the Dictionary of Mexicanisms, we would discover that “mother” is an insignificant and useless thing (‘they gave me a mother as a gift’) or an object whose use or function is unknown, (‘pass me that mother please’); that, preceded by “to all”, it refers to someone or something good or magnificent (‘Margarita is to every mother’) and that if it is preceded by “until” it refers to someone or something that has us fed up or annoyed. (‘I’m fed up with always doing the same thing’). But with our little mothers, you already know, dear reader, this is not the case.
Historical and philosophical reflections on mothers today –and tomorrow– are circumstantial. If it is a question of making a very serious, orthodox and punctual tribute, we should start with the mother of all mothers: the Virgin Mary. Her name, previously written as Myriam, was known from the Old Testament and passed into Catholic devotion linked to the beliefs around Christ and as the supreme example of the ways and expressions of faith. The annunciation to Mary, that is, the news of her holy pregnancy, inaugurates “the fullness of time”, according to the catechism, was designed to conceive the one in whom the fullness of divinity would dwell “bodily” and the size of the mission it was tremendous. It is not for nothing that she is the paradigm of the mother par excellence: the best, the most devoted, the prettiest, the one with the best offspring and, moreover, the purest, as every son would like to always be his. (Perhaps that “my mother is a saint” has a lot to do with the figure of her).
Let’s not forget that even heroes and villains have a mother, even if it doesn’t seem like it, whether they have a good reputation or not. Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, for example, was the first wife in rank, if not in order, of King Philip II of Macedon. She had a great son, but she was a violent, neurotic and superstitious woman, who even sinned with arrogance stating that her son was a demigod of hers because Zeus himself had impregnated her. Under her mandate, and by her orders, several were assassinated. No longer because of evil, say her fans, but because in those days it was appropriate to carry out a policy of eliminating possible rivals and obvious hindrances. Especially if they were going to go against her offspring. There are many examples of this type of mother. And ways to call them too.
Achieving an annual tribute to those who selflessly rocked our cradle was not a Mexican idea but that of an American named Ana Jarvis who fought enthusiastically to ensure that the parents of all (and all) were recognized. The second culprit for the existence of Mother’s Day was Rafael Alducín, director of the old capital newspaper Excelsior, who in 1922 enthusiastically welcomed the idea of designating a specific day of the year to pay well-deserved tribute to Mexican mothers. And it was just on May 10.
For them, beautiful tributes and the best words: “Never in life will you find better and more disinterested tenderness than that of your mother”, said the French writer Honorato de Balzac; “Everything that I am or hope to be I owe to the angelic request of my mother,” said Abraham Lincoln in a meaningful speech; Alejandro Dumas said that mothers always forgive because they have come into the world for that and Napoleon affirmed that the future of a child is always the work of his mother. Mothers, we should all know by now, are not defined, they are not accused and they are not understood. Because we already know how they are and it is very clear to us that there is not, there was not and there will be no better mother in the world than ours. Or not?