How do I love thee?

Mother's Day, Sunday, May 13th

It seems to me that we often search for ways or words to express our love to our mothers. Ways never seem adequate and words can never express the depth of our feelings. After all, how do you repay one who has spent her entire life with one objective - loving us. Then again, love is expressed in so many different ways. Love can be shown with a simple a smile on a cloudy day, a flower chosen at random from a garden, or a kindness unexpected and unrequested.

While Mother's Day is celebrated one Sunday a year, we should all remember that mothering is a 24 - 7- 365 day-a-year job. Mothers don't stop loving us, and neither should we stop appreciating all that our mothers have done for us throughout the year.

If I had to choose the words that come closes to expressing my love for my mother, it would be the classic lines from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Ways.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.