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A tribute to mothers

Mother’s Day is on Sunday, and I salute the women who have made a sterling and definitive contribution in nurturing our well-being.

Mother’s Day is on Sunday, and I salute the women who have made a sterling and definitive contribution in nurturing our well-being.

The sumptuous dinners, expensive gifts, overseas trips and warm hugs and kisses are our heartfelt appreciation to mothers, for a commitment carried out passionately, responsibly and lovingly throughout our lives.

Honouring and appreciating our mothers is not a once-a-year celebratory bash. Daily, we must forge and deepen our bond with our mothers, even as work pressures, domestic and financial concerns or related issues contend for our time and focus.

Mums are awesome, enduring with equanimity the stresses and trials that bringing up children entail. The inconveniences of pregnancy — morning sickness, weight gain, mood swings, food cravings and anxieties — strengthen their resoluteness and steel them mentally for motherhood.

The nights of sleeplessness following the arrival of their bundle of joy, and unwavering watchfulness over every stage in the growth of their darlings, faze them not.

Mothers are worriers, fussing over their children’s health, academic development and social and emotional growth. Although there might be the occasional resentment and rebelliousness from their young ones, mothers take everything in their stride and soldier on regardless.

From the relative calm of childhood to the roller-coaster teenage years and even into adulthood, mums are in the foreground to counsel and shelter or are supervising in the background sometimes.

When mothers reach their sunset years and become frail, ungainly in their movements, slow to speak or even slower to react, and require constant care, we must rightfully step up for them in the best way we know or can.

I thank the three women in my life who have dedicated their adult life to ensuring their children got the best care, abundant and wholesome attention and all-encompassing love. All are mothers: My wife, my 93-year-old mum and my elder daughter-in-law.

All mothers deserve a huge bouquet.

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