Gosh, I am so frust-e-rated, as my grandaughter used to say. We always thought it was so funny and cute when she said it, but you know what, it sounds pretty much on point. The extra “E” gives it that little extra emphasis!
I am frust-e-rated because I have been trying to navigate Flickr for more than two hours. Now it is almost four thirty and I did not accomplish much more than uploading an icon for my home page and connecting with Facebook.
I can now upload to my Facebook page photos of other Flickr members. That is great and I am sure that I will use it, but what I really wanted to do was be able to upload photos to this blog. I am sure you have guessed by now that I have failed miserably.
So, I will not have the nonhuman animal pictures that I so wanted for today’s post. So now, all I want to do is have a little vino to lighten the mood, but I will wait. I have something I want to share with you.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and while there is so much hype, marketing and consumerism swirling around the celebration, it does, in its simplest form, mean something wondrous to me.
Because, I had (have) the greatest mom. If the love she had for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren is any measure of her worth then she was, and still is, in my heart, the best of the best.
My little granddaughter was born nearly six years ago. My daughter, son-in-law and I took the newly born little one to my mom’s for a visit. The baby was sleeping in a playpen in the living room and Mom and I were doing what people always do-we were gazing at this little girl as if she were the most amazing and wonderful being on this planet. My mother looked at me, put her hand on her chest and said,
“Oh Anne, my heart is so full.” That’s my mom.
Fast forward to today-I received in the mail a Mother’s Day package from my daughter and my grandchiblets. I was given permission to open it and I did. This is what I found and, of course, I cried!
Tomorrow, we are invited over to my son and my daughter-in-law’s home for a BBQ. The weather promises to be glorious and I know that we will have a wonderful time.
As a vegan, Mother’s Day is also a time of reflection, a time of sadness for all the nonhuman animal mothers out there whose babies are taken away from them shortly after birth. My heart breaks for these little babies who will never know the constancy of a mother’s love.
Cows bellow, pigs cry, orcas and dolphins scream while they frantically try to stop the inevitable. The pain of loss in their eyes is heart stopping!
And all of it is so unnecessary. It is done in the name of supposed human need when it is really about money, profits and pleasure.
Annie’s Vegan View
I hope that we can all take a moment to ask ourselves how the pain inflicted on nonhuman animal mothers and their babies serves any of us.
Let us remember that mothers of all species love their young and that their babies deserve to be sheltered by that love.
We hold the key to their freedom to live, to form families and to love one another.
Please let’s not deny them that which we hold so dear in our own lives, in our own families.
Therein lies our own salvation.
May all beings be happy and free.