PM’s Mother’s Day Message
The English poet Robert Browning once said that all love begins and ends in motherhood. It is one of the world’s rare truths; a mother is love personified.
Today, I extend heartfelt best wishes to all the mothers across Trinidad and Tobago. I pray that your hearts be filled with joy and your faces marked with smiles. I thank you for all that you have done for your families, your communities and by extension, your country.
I thank you for the many sacrifices and difficult decisions you made bravely. I commend your courage and strength as the bearers of many roles; protector, provider, teacher, healer, friend. I want you to know that you are deeply appreciated and your worth cannot be measured nor can your selflessness be repaid.
As you receive various tokens of appreciation throughout the day, I urge you to look upon those you have nurtured. Your legacies live with you and I pray that you always keep them close and guide them as they continue to grow.
I say to our nation’s children, today is not the only day to show love to those who have been a mother to you. Love is not restricted to a day or a singular deed, be sure to live a life of love.
For 100 years, people around the world have celebrated Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May. In 1908, Anna Jarvis mobilised 10 West Virginian families to celebrate the achievements of women, particularly mothers, three years after her own mother had passed. The observance was wildly successful, perhaps too much so. Soon, Jarvis was forced to reject Mother’s Day and the consumerist exercise it had become.
Do not get caught up in the whirlwinds of bouquets, cards and chocolate delights. Do not allow the significance of the day to slip through your fingers. Let us show our love and appreciation now and always so that we will have very little to regret when our loved ones are no longer with us.
To those of you whose mothers are not with us today, rejoice for the times that you were fortunate to share. Do not think that she is gone for she is in the love that she taught you. She lives on in your smile, in your laughter and most importantly, in your heart.
Again, to our nation’s mothers, I wish a blessed and joy-filled experience this Mother’s Day.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC, MP
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
May 11, 2014.