The holiday was set aside almost 100 years ago to honors mothers. Thanks to Anna Jarvis it started in West Virginia.

For most of us no relationship can compare to the one who gave us life.

So often many of us take that relationship for granted, especially when we still have our mothers.

I think it becomes more apparent after we become adults and move on with our lives just how special that time was when growing up with a loving mother.

Nothing changes lives more than a woman when she becomes a mother. It is more than a 24-hour-a day responsibly. Mothers are actually creating and forming that baby’s own life from day one.

I can’t even begin to think of a more important job.

Our feelings often change after we become a mother ourselves. We realize then that hardly a moment goes by that that child is not on our minds—even after our child becomes an adult. I know my head never hit my pillow that I didn’t wonder if my sons were ok, what were they doing, and even where were they.

Then and only then we can look back to our own mothers and know she probably had all those thoughts too.

I was shopping with one of my friends several years ago when one of them suddenly said, “Oh, I have to find a darned card for my mother.” It was not that she had been a bad daughter, it was just that her elderly mother did things that irritated her. I remember I stopped in my tracts and said back to her, “How I wish I had what you consider a bother right now, but my mother is gone now.”

So many things we just take for granted. We don’t seem to stop to think our mothers will not be there for us forever. And when they are gone, they are really gone.

There are times that we have had difficult times with our mothers. None of us ever agreed with her 100 percent of the time. I do realize many times those relationship never worked out between a mother and child. Many times there are reasons for that. But the lost feeling must be the same once we have lost our mothers. If many could just foresee how our own lives will change when that person is no longer with us. People can tell us how it will be, but no one really knows until it happens.

It seems so many put off fixing things in the relationship, then it becomes too late. That person is gone from our lives. One day a year to send a card, flowers, call, or whatever just doesn’t seem to be enough. The holiday is important, but Mother’s Day should be every day.

One funny side to my thinking is how one of my grandmothers used to tell us all that she wanted nothing on that day. Once it was tested, and no one did, she pouted for months. We had a good laugh out of it, but we never ignored her again, nor did she ever make her usual comment.