To­mor­row, March 15, the Unit­ed King­dom and Ire­land will ob­serve Moth­er’s Day, al­so known as Moth­er­ing Sun­day. It is al­ways held on the fourth Sun­day of Lent (Laetare Sun­day), three weeks be­fore East­er Sun­day.

Pope St John Paul II re­mind­ed us that “the fam­i­ly is the first and vi­tal cell of so­ci­ety…The fu­ture of hu­man­i­ty pass­es by way of the fam­i­ly.”

Moth­ers play a crit­i­cal role in the fam­i­ly and in so­ci­ety. Kahlil Gibran’s words res­onate with me: “Moth­er: the most beau­ti­ful word on the lips of mankind.”

Let us ho­n­our moth­ers and oth­er moth­er fig­ures, for ex­am­ple, grand­moth­ers, step­moth­ers, moth­ers-in-law, and, I would add, fa­thers who take on the role of moth­ers.

In a coun­try/world in which in­di­vid­u­al­ism and self­ish­ness abound, let us com­mit to sup­port those moth­ers who are strug­gling to make ends meet; those with dis­abil­i­ties; those who are mourn­ing the death of loved ones; those on the mar­gins of so­ci­ety; those who are the vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, or hu­man traf­fick­ing; those with men­tal health chal­lenges such as de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, stress, lone­li­ness.

If we look care­ful­ly, we will no­tice the moth­ers who face phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges on a dai­ly ba­sis. We can­not turn a blind eye to their plight. Take ac­tion as an in­di­vid­ual to lend sup­port where you can, or join an or­gan­i­sa­tion that sup­ports moth­ers/fam­i­lies.

Some com­mu­ni­ties have formed neigh­bour­hood watch groups with the aim of stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those in need in their com­mu­ni­ties and fur­ther afield.

Grow­ing up in a home with a Hin­du fa­ther and a Catholic moth­er, and from my own in­ter­faith work, I learned a lot about the val­ue that var­i­ous re­li­gions place on moth­er­hood. For ex­am­ple, in Chris­tian­i­ty, Mary, the moth­er of Je­sus, is seen as the ul­ti­mate role mod­el of a lov­ing moth­er.

St Jerome, fa­ther and doc­tor of the church, re­minds us that Mary was not on­ly Je­sus’ moth­er, but is con­sid­ered the spir­i­tu­al moth­er of the church and of all hu­man­i­ty. See John 19:26–27, where Je­sus gives his moth­er to John, the beloved dis­ci­ple, rep­re­sent­ing all hu­man­i­ty.

In Hin­duism, the Vedas, the old­est scrip­tures of Hin­duism, state that moth­ers are revered as the “first gu­ru” and supreme nur­tur­ers of the child.

I am in Lon­don and will spend some time to­day vis­it­ing the Gar­den of Re­mem­brance, where my moth­er’s ash­es were strewn in a rose gar­den in a cre­ma­to­ri­um. Ma loved ros­es. Their fra­grance per­me­at­ed our en­tire house and gar­den. I pay trib­ute to my dear­ly de­part­ed moth­er, Ru­by Ramdeen, née Man­ning, a phe­nom­e­nal moth­er/woman; a strong, re­silient woman of faith, com­pas­sion and grace. My par­ents’ nur­tur­ing care and un­con­di­tion­al love root­ed us, their chil­dren, in val­ues and virtues that have stood the test of time, and con­tin­ue to act as our moral com­pass.

On In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day (March 8), I post­ed a pho­to of my par­ents tak­en at a func­tion or­gan­ised the then PM, Dr Er­ic Williams, to wel­come Em­per­or Haile Se­lassie to T&T in April 1966. Pa was an MP for Ca­roni East in T&T’s first In­de­pen­dent Par­lia­ment, and he and Ma were in­vit­ed to the event.

I share be­low just three of the com­ments made on my Face­book post: from my sis­ter-in-law and two of my school friends:

a. “Your Ma was a great woman, Leela. Be­lieve it. Hum­ble but so au­then­tic. The lit­tle sto­ries we shared. The way she was so dis­cern­ing in her ob­ser­va­tions. And above all, her love for her hus­band and chil­dren. Great woman.”

b. “She was a warm, car­ing woman, al­ways wel­com­ing your friends to her home with gen­uine, ac­tive hos­pi­tal­i­ty.”

c. “We’ve heard the moth­er-in-law jokes, but Ma was a di­a­mond. Every­one was made to feel wel­comed. She was a lov­ing, car­ing, pa­tient teacher. If the go­ing gets tough, I catch my­self ask­ing, “How would Ma tack­le this?” A lit­tle voice pops in­to my head giv­ing me ad­vice, as if from her, and I feel con­fi­dent that act­ing on that ad­vice would be the right thing to do. I feel priv­i­leged to call you Ma and to have jour­neyed with you over the years. To­day is for all strong women and moth­ers who gave us life.”

We can and must do more to em­pow­er moth­ers so that they can un­der­take their roles more ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly. Do we have the nec­es­sary sup­port­ive leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and com­mu­ni­ty re­sources to sup­port moth­ers eg gain­ful em­ploy­ment, fam­i­ly-friend­ly work­places, ad­e­quate health­care, phys­i­cal and self-care sup­port?

Hap­py Moth­er’s Day!