Millions of post cards and flowers will be delivered. Many will be celebrating on this day, and some will not. More will be lost to violence before this day ends. Some are still looking to reconnect, while others simply want to disconnect. Many still wish she was here.

Records have shown that in 1908, Ann Jarvis created a committee to establish "Mother Love" and later U.S. President Woodrow Wilson recognized it in 1914. Other records show it dated back to the 1600 in England, and it was celebrated during Lent.

Today, other countries celebrate it at different times. Regardless, once a year she gets to be the center of attention.
In many industrialized and developed regions, Mother's Day has grown to a multibillion dollar business through gifts, jewelry, and flowers. Commercialization and profitability often ignore the intangibles, and at times the missing links. However, society has evolved, so now a child can have two moms, and the gratitude the day brings still remains intact.

On this day, if asked to send a list of why this person is so special, I believe I could write a book, and start an entire blog. Regardless of whether linked by an umbilical cord, mutual agreement or a tragic circumstance, her essential role has shaped many of us today in becoming creative, productive social beings.

The love she receives on this day should remind us about empathy, understanding, and responsibility followed by a plan or action. It is more important than making a new year's pledge to lose weight, finishing a book, cleaning a closet or finding a new job. Although many resolutions are broken and life goes on, the resolution to honor her has to remain active.

Despite an evolution from what I call "from the kitchen to the work place", gender disparities remain a problem. She is paid less than her male counterparts for the same work performed. In several poor and developing countries, women still struggle to achieve a balance in the realms of health care, business, law enforcement, and still lack support for efforts to raise awareness of their plight. At times, in order to appreciate the legacies she passes on, one has to look back just in case you missed it.

Last month was Victim Awareness Month. On memorable days like Mother's Day, sometimes the conversation has to be uncomfortable even if the timing is not right. Often it is much easier to tell someone that he or she has lost a loved one than it is to talk about one's own issues. To protect her family, she has suppressed her own feelings. Whatever language she speaks, whatever her location, Mother's Day is universal.

Our society has to draw more attention to the atrocities against women, and the devastating consequences. Today it is great that bullying, sexual and domestic violence have been getting much needed awareness, thanks to few rich and famous people who had to deal with it in front of the camera.

Especially in underserved populations, many reports show that women are unlikely to report an abuse. These are the kinds of uncomfortable headlines some mothers would have liked to discuss on Mother's Day, for the benefit of the women still on the street searching for a home.

From peace to war time, economic downturns to a bullish economy, navigating barbaric ideologies, to the picket line, mothers have played a role in creating the society that many of us enjoy today. Think of the hot meal we enjoy when it could have been a cold one. But you never knew until you realized how she survived almost on one wing, that now this kind of work for the future is your responsibility.

With today's technology, their stories can be found instantaneously. Over the past several weeks, mothers have died escaping violence while looking for a better life for their families. It is beyond troubling to think that many girls and young women will not even have a chance to grow up and become mothers because of the abuse and violence they face.

Despite the danger many moms face, they still believe that an educated child will control his or her own destiny. Ignoring the fear of having a child killed, raped or kidnapped, she risks their lives for a better education although she is uneducated. The number of primary school aged girls not in school has increased in several developing countries. It is about 18 million worldwide, according to the World Bank.

Taking away their intellectual curiosity can only add to the crime that has been on a rise for over 30 years, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). What will be the state of our mothers? These women with substance abuse, mental illness, and histories of sexual and physical abuse.

Education, especially for women, is essential for the creation of a better global economy, many scholars argue. Sadly, their own partners are responsible for over 38 percent of the women murdered each year, resulting in a cost of billions in productivity, mostly felt by women and children.

On her special day each year, as she welcomes your rose and the meal you have decided to buy or prepare, let us thank her for protecting us. Far too often, while we celebrate her accomplishments, tragedy rages on as another family searches for an answer to what has befallen the women among them.

What if on Mother's Day, we all recommit to becoming advocates, finding ways to work with elected officials to address the plight of women globally?

o Derrick Miller is a trained U.S. federal law enforcement officer that has been in the criminal justice field for more than 14 years. This article is published with permission of Caribbean News Now.

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