Hardship Of A Mother Quotes

Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms. They're the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one buts moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

When you leave home to follow your dreams, your road will probably be riddled with potholes, not always paved in happy Technicolor bricks. You'll probably be kicked to the ground 150 million times and told you're nuts by friends and strangers alike. As you progress you may feel lonely or terrified for your physical and emotional safety. You may overestimate your own capabilities or fail to live up to them, and you'll surely fall flat on your face once in a while.

Such a marvel, the tenacity of the buds to surge with life every spring, to greet the lengthening days and warming weather with exuberance, no matter what hardships were brought by winter.

The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary.

Yet within a miles, Margaret knew of house after house, where she would for her own sake, and her mother for her Aunt Shaw's, would be welcomed, if they came to gladness, or even in peace of mind. If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances.

Each person held aloft a single lit candle—the city’s traditional way to express its appreciation for that year’s peace prize winner. It was a magical sight, as if a pool of stars had descended from the sky; and as Michelle and I leaned out to wave, the night air brisk on our cheeks, the crowd cheering wildly, I couldn’t help but think about the daily fighting that continued to consume Iraq and Afghanistan and all the cruelty and suffering and injustice that my administration had barely even begun to deal with. The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable; on some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion. And yet, in the flickering of those candles, I saw something else. I saw an expression of the spirit of millions of people around the world: the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play. Whatever you do won’t be enough, I heard their voices say. Try anyway.

He were found drowned. He were coming home very hopeless o' aught on earth. He thought God could na be harder than men; mappen not so hard; mappen as tender as a mother; mappen tenderer. I'm not saying he did right, and I'm not saying he didn't wrong. All I say is, may neither me nor mine ever have his sore heart, or we may do like things.

How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend years dealing with this madness.

Love is the closest thing we have to meaning in this world. The love of a mother for her children, the love between friends, the love of a husband and wife, love for who we are and all those who strove before us to hand us the world we have now—love is why we live, why we fight, why we carry on when things get tough…it is not always easy. But it is our reprieve from true hardship, not the hardship itself.

I like Russian trains. Not for comfort, of which there is none, nor speed, of which there is barely any to be spoken about, particularly when you relate it to the size of the country that must be crossed. Not even, particularly, for the view, which is inevitably repetitive, as Mother Nature decrees that her works of wonder can only occur so frequently across such a vast and cultivated space. I like Russian trains, or at least those I travelled on in the early spring of 1956, so many centuries after I gunned Lisle down in cold blood; I like the trains for the sense of unity that all these hardships create in its passengers. I suspect the experience is relative.

We’re friends,” I say firmly. “You stood up to your maniacal mother—” “Homicidal,” Aithinne interrupts. “Why mince words?” “—to aid me. I’m returning the favor. You’ll just have to let me help you. Such a hardship, I realize.

Katz had read extensively in popular sociobiology, and his understanding of the depressive personality type and its seemingly perverse persistence in the human gene pool was that depression was successful adaptation to ceaseless pain and hardship. Pessimism, feelings of worthlessness and lack of entitlement, inability to derive satisfaction from pleasure, a tormenting awareness of the world's general crappiness: for Katz Jewish paternal forebears, who'd been driven from shtetl to shtetl by implacable anti-Semites, as for the old Angles and Saxons on his mother's side, who'd labored to grow rye and barley in the poor soils and short summers of northern Europe, feeling bad all the time and expecting the worse had been natural ways of equilibriating themselves with the lousiness of their circumstances. Few things gratified depressives, after all, more than really bad news. This obviously wasn't an optimal way to live, but it had its evolutionary advantages.

Caroline wiped her cheek with the back of her gardening glove, leaving a dark smudge below one eye, then pulled off her gloves. 'But it's fitting in a way - Father loved the fact that a lilac only blossoms after a harsh winter.' Caroline reached over and smoothed the hair back from my brow with a light touch. How many times had my mother done that? 'It's a miracle all of this beauty emerges after such hardship, don't you think?

memories were tricky things…they weren’t stable. they changed with perception over time. …they shifted, and [she] understood how the passage of time affected them. the hard working striver might recall his childhood as one filled with misery and hardship marred by the cat calls and mae calling of playground bullies, but later, have a much more forgiving understanding of past injustices. the handmade clothes he had been forced to wear, became a testament to his mother’s love. each patch and stitch a sign of her diligence, instead of a brand of poverty. he would remember father staying up late to help him with his homework – the old old man’s patience and dedication, instead of the sharpness of his temper when he returned home – late- from the factory. it went the other way as well. [she] had scanned thousands of memories of spurned women, whose handsome lovers turned ugly and rude. roman noses, perhaps too pointed. eyes growing small and mean. while the oridnary looking boys who had become their husbands, grew in attractiveness as the years passed, so that when asked if it was love at first site, the women cheerfully answered yes. memories were moving pictures in which meaning was constantly in flux. they were stories people told themselves.

Few boys have been as fortunate as I, raised into manhood with only the gentlest of words and blandishments in my ears and the kindest of caresses upon my person, by a mother who sheltered us from everything that is harsh and ugly in this world. I was spoiled, utterly unprepared for cruelty, and perhaps this sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not! You mustn't think I blame you. I'm afraid I must sound like the most ungrateful son in the world, when in fact the opposite is true. I am more grateful now than ever for the way you raised us, teaching us the value of kindness, of education, of independent thinking and liberal ideals, in the face of the fascism that is sweeping our country. The cruelest punishments now fail to bring even a tear to my eye, but the thought of the hardship you've suffered on behalf of your ideals makes me weep like a baby.

Because we cannot discover God's throne in the sky with a radiotelescope or establish (for certain) that a beloved father or mother is still about in a more or less corporeal form, people assume that such ideas are "not true." I would rather say that they are not "true" enough, for these are conceptions of a kind that have accompanied human life from prehistoric times, and that still break through into consciousness at any provocation. Modern man may assert that he can dispose with them, and he may bolster his opinion by insisting that there is no scientific evidence of their truth. Or he may even regret the loss of his convictions. But since we are dealing with invisible and unknowable things (for God is beyond human understanding, and there is no means of proving immortality), why should we bother about evidence? Even if we did not know by reason our need for salt in our food, we should nonetheless profit from its use. We might argue that the use of salt is a mere illusion of taste or a superstition; but it would still contribute to our well-being. Why, then, should we deprive ourselves of views that would prove helpful in crises and would give a meaning to our existence? And how do we know that such ideas are not true? Many people would agree with me if I stated flatly that such ideas are probably illusions. What they fail to realize is that the denial is as impossible to "prove" as the assertion of religious belief. We are entirely free to choose which point of view we take; it will in any case be an arbitrary decision. There is, however, a strong empirical reason why we should cultivate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be useful. Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe. He can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense; he is crushed when, on top of all his misfortunes, he has to admit that he is taking part in a "tale told by an idiot." It is the role of religious symbols to give a meaning to the life of man. The Pueblo Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun, and this belief endows their life with a perspective (and a goal) that goes far beyond their limited existence. It gives them ample space for the unfolding of personality and permits them a full life as complete persons. Their plight is infinitely more satisfactory than that of a man in our own civilization who knows that he is (and will remain) nothing more than an underdog with no inner meaning to his life.

God’s faithfulness is proved not by the elimination of hardships but by carrying us through them. Change is not the absence of struggles; change is the freedom to choose holiness in the midst of our struggles. I realized that the ultimate issue has to be that I yearn after God in total surrender and complete obedience.

Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, The Chief Guardian dives deep and pulls strength from all the hardships and struggles that are thrown at her, yet she is blamed for everything that has gone wrong. Not only is she blamed for everything, but she is also always judged by her actions. As she’s being blamed and judged she’s always given a shitty stick and dealt an unfair hand. How is that fair to the Chief Guardian? She is the one who has to carry the load when she doesn’t have any fight left. She is the one who has to figure every burden out, without any help from the fathers of the fatherless children. Yet she finds the courage to figure it out as she keeps pushing and moving on through the pain.

Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

I didn’t want to be transported to another world. My favorite books all involved people dealing with hardships. I loved The Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, and especially A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I thought Francie Nolan and I were practically identical, except that she had lived fifty years earlier in Brooklyn and her mother always kept the house clean. Francie Nolan’s father sure reminded me of Dad. If Francie saw the good in her father, even though most people considered him a shiftless drunk, maybe I wasn’t a complete fool for believing in mine. Or trying to believe in him. It was getting harder. • • •

But it is not merely a taboo against complaint that makes the hardship of motherhood inadmissable: like all loves this one has a conflicted core, a grain of torment that buffs the pearl of pleasure; unlike other loves, this conflict has no possibility of resolution.

There is a folk-tale about a shoemaker and his wife who were so poor that they had to send their many children out into the world to make a living. The lads went through many a perilous adventure but came home in the end, unscathed, to help their mother. They had always remembered their mother's advice and wise words; they often quoted them when they were in trouble, and in fact they recognized one another by them in foreign lands. The countless peoples of the world may be looked upon as so many children sent out into the world. They have gone through many adventures and hardships. They have drifted apart and fallen out with one another, on many occasions. They have failed to realize soon enough that they are brothers. But now it seems that they are beginning to realize this -- at least to the extent that they are able to get acquainted with each other's fundamental natures -- through their stories and songs.

For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits.

The first teachers I met in life were: my mother, hardship, and death. The first mentors I met in life were: friends, family, and mentors. The first lecturers I met in life were: intuition, experience, and conscience. The first professors I met in life were: nature, books, and truth. The first educators I met in life were: the past, the present, and the future. The first scholars I met in life were: the mind, the heart, and the soul. The first masters I met in life were: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

And the mother, who through all the years of her hardship had never shed a tear, wept at his trust and her deception.

How had the trees weathered the changing cycles of growth and dormancy, and how did this compare to the joys and hardships my family had endured in a fraction of the time?

Dear good guy I can hear your cries I can feel your pain I can smell your frustration I can see the confusion in your eyes Confused about how women see you In a land of women tired of being played They still take you as a joke and think you’re all games They play you like they were played They can’t see the seriousness in your eyes When you call her “Queen” and ask for her heart And you cry for commitment, they back out and shut down Treat you like the bad guys treated them It’s so ironic You hate seeing these ladies get their hearts stomped on Their minds toyed with It’s killing you because you’ve done it to women yourself you’ve seen other guys do it You want to save them from the destruction But like a child who refuses to obey their mother’s wisdom, until they are wise enough to understand through experience They won’t value you until they get burned playing with the fire of curiosity Some of them crave destruction They crave the fun that these fellas who will degrade them have to offer They are being guided by curiosity and their wisdom is foolishness Fight the urge to become like the men these ladies who lack understanding chase after Don’t let rejection consume your heart and cause you to crumble Being a promiscuous man who lacks self-respect and morals is overrated Find peace with being the underdog Your type is needed in this world, my good friend Hold on There are women out there who are in search for someone like you One of them will be the one who appreciates the detailed things about you the previous women called corny There are women out there who will value your honesty, your character, your loyalty Hold on, my friend Narrow is the right path You are on the right path, my friend Your time will come in due time You will not just be getting a girl, you will be getting a woman who will be willing to finish off this life’s journey with you You are not alone I am with you and I understand the hardships you face, the doubt, the anger I want you to know you are doing a great job at being you Do not give up Stand firm and continue to be different You will be an example to many although you are in the minority Corruption

This leaf has fallen from its mother and withered. Yet the tree does not mourn the loss. While barren, it stands tall, ready to bear the burden of winter, for it knows that through hardship comes renewal.

My mother, after stopping her physical abuse, began conveying my private life through a filtered lens to my relatives via phone. She was the 'dutiful mother' and painted our family portrait as a hardship because of me.

A man is born; his first years go by in obscurity amid the pleasures or hardships of childhood. He grows up; then comes the beginning of manhood; finally society's gates open to welcome him; he comes into contact with his fellows. For the first time he is scrutinized and the seeds of the vices and virtues of his maturity are thought to be observed forming in him. This is, if I am not mistaken, a singular error. Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first word which arouse with him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of the prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life.

Our souls are like blisters,” he said, a whisper of smile flavoring the words. “The irritant, the hardship, the pain, will make your skin tougher. Stronger.” He delicately touched the sore spot. “But take that away, and you take away the growth.

Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them? Especially moms. They’re the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints. Angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it’s like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

A trip. A fall. A horrible way to die. To have survived all those traumas, those hardships—a war, an orphanage, immigration, being a single mother in a foreign country—only to die by something as mundane as a slipper or a shoe. It was terrible. It was all so very terrible.

If you ask me, everyone is a little too interested in their children’s happiness. Ask anyone what they wish for their kids and they’ll all say they want them to be happy. Happy! Not empathetic contributing members of society. Not humble, wise and tolerant. Not strong in the face of adversity or grateful in the face of misfortune. I, on the other hand, have always wanted hardship for my kids. Real, honest hardship. Challenges big enough to make them empathetic and wise. Take the pregnant refugee girls I deal with every day. They’ve been through unimaginable hardships, and here they are working hard, contributing and grateful. What more could you want for your kids?

The mere fact that her children were children, condemned for years to feel powerless and bewildered and confined, filled her with such pity that to add any further hardship to their lives seemed unthinkable. She could excuse anything in them, forgive them everything. She would have made a better mother, perhaps, if she hadn’t remembered so well how it felt to be a child.

I'm sure your children won't approve of you, Scarlett, any more than Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and their broods approve of you now. Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that they shall never know the hardships you've known. And that's all wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you'll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren.

Now, her mother lifts Kavita’s head up out of her lap and holds her face, hot with tears, in her cool hands. “I am glad it is you who is going,” her mother whispers. Kavita looks up at her with shock. “I won’t worry about you, Kavita. You have strength. Fortitude. Shakti. Bombay will bring you hardship. But you, beti, have the strength to endure it.” And through her mother’s words and her hands, Kavita feels it—shakti, the sacred feminine force that flows from the Divine Mother to all those who have come after her.

in the flickering of those candles, I saw something else. I saw an expression of the spirit of millions of people around the world: the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play. Whatever you do won’t be enough, I heard their voices say. Try anyway.

She wasn't satisfied by the play she saw the following Saturday either. All right. The long lost lover came home just in time t pay the mortgage. What if he had been held up and couldn't make it? The landlord would have to give them thirty days to get out - at least that's how it was in Brooklyn. In that month something might turn up. If it didn't and they had to get out, well, they'd have to make the best of it. The pretty heroine would have to go out peddling papers. The mother would have to do cleaning by the day. But they'd live. You betcha they'd live, thought Francie grimly. It takes a lot of doing to die.

If, on the other hand, a man's experience of his mother has been positive, this can also affect his anima in typical but different ways, with the result that he either becomes effeminate or is preyed upon by women and thus is unable to cope with the hardships of life. An anima of this sort can turn men into sentimentalists, or they may become as touchy as old maids or as sensitive as the fairy-tale princess who could feel a pea under 30 mattresses. A still more subtle manifestation of a negative anima appears in some fairy tales in the form of a princess who asks her suitors to answer a series of riddles or, perhaps, to hide themselves under her nose. If they cannot give the answers, or if she can find them, they must die—and she invariably wins. The anima in this guise involves men in a destructive intellectual game. We can notice the effect of this anima trick in all those neurotic pseudo-intellectual dialogues that inhibit a man from getting into direct touch with life and its real decisions. He reflects about life so much that he cannot live it and loses all his spontaneity and outgoing feeling.

Cassatt's quiet pictures of mothers and children, or of women alone in the privacy of their rooms, are deeply moving. They have that strange elusive quality of a Schubert song or a Vermeer painting, of capturing precisely the bittersweet fleeting moment that makes life, for all its disappointments, travails, and hardships, so worth living. Such moments are melancholy as well as joyful precisely because they are fleeting: transcendently beautiful but so brief as to be immeasurable. When we look at the milkmaid pouring milk in Vermeer’s painting in the Rijksmuseum, we see—as for the first time—how beautiful is a humble stream of milk that pours from a jug, how supremely elegant is its trajectory, how subtle is the play of light upon it; but we understand simultaneously that the moment cannot last, indeed that part of its beauty is its very transience. Though not for long, perfection is indeed of this world. And this perception reconciles us to our existence, full of ugliness as it might otherwise be. If there are Vermeerian moments in our life—as there will be, if only we pay close enough attention—we shall reach serenity, at least intermittently. And that is enough.

They waited at the back door until the storm clouds passed. The sky was violet and the light was silver. Alice followed her mother into the garden that was glossy with rain. They came to a bush her mother had planted recently. When Alice last took notice, it was just a tumble of bright green leaves. Now, after the rain, the bush was thick with fragrant white flowers. She studied them in bewilderment. 'Thought you might like these,' her mother said. 'Is it magic?' Alice reached out to touch one of the petals. 'The best kind.' Her mother nodded. 'Flower magic.' Alice bent down to get as close as she could. 'What are they, Mama?' 'Storm lilies. Just like the night you were born. They only flower after a good downpour.' Alice leant down and studied them closely. Their petals were flung open, leaving their centers fully exposed. 'They can't exist without rain?' Alice asked, straightening up. Her mother considered her for a moment before nodding. 'When I was in your father's truck the night you were born, they were growing wild by the road. I remember seeing them in bloom in the storm.' She looked away but Alice saw her mother's eyes fill. 'Alice,' her mother began. 'I planted the storm lilies here for a reason.' Alice nodded. 'Storm lilies are a sign of expectation. Of the goodness that can come from hardship.

the cotton fields and strawberry patches of a much harsher world whose tragedies and daily burdens had blunted her temperament and quelled her emotions. But its most immediate impact on this teenage girl was not the lack of a demure coquettishness that otherwise might have defined her had she grown up in better circumstances; it was the visible evidence of the hardship of her journey. This was not a pom-pom-waving homecoming queen or a varsity athlete who had toned her body in a local gym. My mother never complained, but it was her struggles that had visibly shaped her shoulders, grown her biceps, and crusted her palms—while in a less visible way narrowing her view of her own long-term horizons. Decades later, when I was in my forties, I suppressed a defensive anger as I watched my mother sit quietly in an expansive waterfront Florida living room while a well-bred woman her age described the supposedly difficult impact of the Great Depression on her family. As the woman told it, the crash on Wall Street and the failed economy had made it necessary for them to ship their car by rail from New York to Florida when they headed south for the winter. Who could predict, she reasoned, whether there would be food or gasoline if their driver had to refuel and dine in the remote and hostile environs of small-town Georgia? My mother merely smiled and nodded, as

Because we cannot discover God's throne in the sky with a radiotelescope or establish (for certain) that a beloved father or mother is still about in a more or less corporeal form, people assume that such ideas are "not true." I would rather say that they are not "true" enough, for these are conceptions of a kind that have accompanied human life from prehistoric times, and that still break through into consciousness at any provocation. Modern man may assert that he can dispose with them, and he may bolster his opinion by insisting that there is no scientific evidence of their truth. Or he may even regret the loss of his convictions. But since we are dealing with invisible and unknowable things (for God is beyond human understanding, and there is no means of proving immortality), why should we bother about evidence? Even if we did not know by reason our need for salt in our food, we should nonetheless profit from its use. We might argue that the use of salt is a mere illusion of taste or a superstition; but it would still contribute to our well-being. Why, then, should we deprive ourselves of views that would prove helpful in crises and would give a meaning to our existence? And how do we know that such ideas are not true? Many people would agree with me if I stated flatly that such ideas are probably illusions. What they fail to realize is that the denial is as impossible to "prove" as the assertion of religious belief. We are entirely free to choose which point of view we take; it will in any case be an arbitrary decision. There is, however, a strong empirical reason why we should cultivate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be useful. Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe. He can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense; he is crushed when, on top of all his misfortunes, he has to admit that he is taking part in a "tale told by an idiot." It is the role of religious symbols to give a meaning to the life of man. The Pueblo Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun, and this belief endows their life with a perspective (and a goal) that goes far beyond their limited existence. It gives them ample space for the unfolding of personality and permits them a full life as complete persons. Their plight is infinitely more satisfactory than that of a man in our own civilization who knows that he is (and will remain) nothing more than an underdog with no inner meaning to his life.

The "kindness of giving you a body" means that, at first, our bodies are not fully matured nor are our pleasant complexions. We started in the mother's womb as just an oval spot and oblong lump, and from there we developed through the vital essence of the mother's blood and flesh. We grew through the vital essence of her food while she endured embarrassment, pain, and suffering. After we were born, from a small worm until we were fully grown, she developed our body. The "kindness of undergoing hardships for you" means that, at first, we were not wearing any clothes with all their ornamentation, did not possess any wealth, and did not bring any provisions. We just came with a mouth and stomach-empty-handed, without any material things. When we came to this place where we knew no one, she gave food when we were hungry, she gave drink when we were thirsty, she gave clothes when we were cold, she gave wealth when we had nothing. Also, she did not just give us things she did not need. Rather, she has given us what she did not dare use for herself, things she did not dare eat, drink, or wear for herself, things she did not dare employ for the happiness of this life, things she did not dare use for her next life's wealth. In brief, without looking for happiness in this life or next, she nurtured her child. She did not obtain these things easily or with pleasure. She collected them by creating various negative karmas, by sufferings and hardships, and gave them all to the child. For example, creating negative karma: she fed the child through various nonvirtuous actions like fishing, butchering, and so forth. For example, suffering: to give to the child, she accumulated wealth by working at a business or farm and so forth, wearing frost for shoes, wearing stars as a hat, riding on the horse of her legs, her hem like a whip, giving her legs to the dogs and her face to the people. Furthermore, she loved the unknown one much more than her father, mother, and teachers who were very kind to her. She watched the child with eyes of love, and kept it warm in soft cloth. She dandled the child in her ten fingers, and lifted it up in the sky. She called to it in a loving, pleasant voice, saying, "Joyful one, you who delight Mommy. Lu, lu, you happy one," and so forth. The "kindness of giving you life" means that, at first, we were not capable of eating with our mouth and hands nor were we capable of enduring all the different hardships. We were like feeble insects without strength; we were just silly and could not think anything. Again, without rejection, the mother served us, put us on her lap, protected us from fire and water, held us away from precipices, dispelled all harmful things, and performed rituals. Out of fear for our death or fear for our health, she did divinations and consulted astrologers. Through many ritual ceremonies and many other different things, in inconceivable ways, she protected the life of her child. The "kindness of showing you the world" means that, at first, we did not come here knowing various things, seeing broadly, and being talented. We could only cry and move our legs and hands. Other than that, we knew nothing. The mother taught us how to eat when we did not know how. She taught us how to wear clothes when we did not know how. She taught us how to walk when we did not know how. She taught us how to talk when we did not know how to say "Mama," or "Hi," and so forth. She taught us various skills, creative arts, and so forth. She tried to make us equal when we were unequal, and tried to make the uneven even for us. Not only have we had a mother in this lifetime, but from beginningless samsara she served as a mother countless times.

Change is the law of life,' she said quietly. 'On the other hand,' I protested, 'some things don't change fast enough!' 'Like what?' Mother asked. 'Like fat, funny-looking me!' Mother snorted. 'You're extremely good-looking. All my children are.' I expected her to add, 'I wouldn't have it any other way,' but she said, instead, 'If you think you're too heavy, lose some weight.' 'Easier said than done,' I muttered. 'If there's one thing I can't bear,' Mother scolded, 'it's self-pity, particularly from one who has no reason to pity herself. Are you crippled? Are you stupid? Are you hungry, or ill-clothed? If you were then you'd have something to gripe about. You're fatherless, it's true, but then I'm husbandless. Somehow, we manage.

Bending low, Billy whispered to the infant and tickled his chin, her profile and jawline as fine as any fairy-tale princess’s. Everything about her intrigued him. Nothing about her made sense. She’d taken to the babe like a bear to a honey tree. Clearly, she’d make a good mother. So why would she have intentionally given up the sacred calling of her sex in exchange for the toil and hardship of a man’s? Had she feared she’d become a spinster and didn’t want to be a burden to her family? But that didn’t make a bit of sense. Not with her curves and face and easy laughter. There had to have been plenty of men willing to guard and protect her within the walls of their homes and the strength of their arms.

Her parents had always been blind to the things that plagued their children: being teased at school for the color of their skin or for the funny things their mother occasionally put into their lunch boxes, potato curry sandwiches that tinted Wonderbread green. What could there possibly be to be unhappy about? her parents would have thought. "Depression" was a foreign word to them, an American thing. In their opinion their children were immune from the hardships and injustices they had left behind in India, as if the inoculations the pediatrician had given Sudha and Rahul when they were babies guaranteed them an existence free of suffering.

I finally found a place near the North Railroad Station, a workers' district. It was a bombed out building, barely repaired. We moved in. Father came from Dorohoi, we were again together. It took quite a while to get Mother in better shape. She needed a skin graft, a new procedure at that time. It was innovative surgery. For a long time she had difficulty eating, since the lip had not healed properly. I remember with great gratitude the kindly Jewish surgeon, Dr. Brochovici, a man of real compassion and of great capability. In all this hardship, we had some luck.

Hope is the assurance of positive expectations.

To my dear daughters, granddaughters, and all future brides, I thought it would be a wonderful tradition for each bride to write a little note and leave a legacy for those who come after her. How I wish my own mother had lived to see my wedding day and been present to share her wisdom! I make no pretense at being wise, but God is. The bible says we can ask for wisdom, and God will honor our request. As you consider marriage, first seek God's will and ask Him to direct your heart. Do not hasten to take your vows. Pause and reflect before you take such a momentous step, and be sure your mate honors God. A marriage is not just between a man and a woman--it is a holy union which must include the Lord to flourish. Ethan was God's gift to me. His patience, strength, and companionship were like a balm to my grief. We learned to work together and rely on one another until respect and affection sparked. Love came softly and grew in our hearts. How I thank God for bringing us together and blessing our union! Though hardships test us and extraordinary things thrill us, life is made up of mundane days. Love each other in the little, commonplace matters of life to strengthen your marriage, or it will wither from neglect. Appreciate what you have, and forgive as freely as you laugh. My darlings, my prayer is for you to make wise decisions of the heart--first in devoting your spirit to the Lord, then in giving your hand to a man. May each of you be blessed with a godly mate and know the joy of growing close together and growing old with him.

Have you ever struggled through a fight but kept pushing on? Kara Tippetts, who is a mother of four had died of breast cancer. She had written The Hardest Peace to show how she was living the best way she could in her situation. She had never expressed any sort emotion that was never any positive feeling. Starting chapter one Tippetts combines both the mind and the heart in her writing. She does not give the reader any way of comparing their life to her story, having to look back on their own. Her book distinguishes many of her hardships that she had before her passing. Abuse, drugs, and broken relationships all lead up to her talk of cancer. Throughout this whole story Tippetts calls her cancer “hard”. She describes her fight with each hard, while demonstrating her feelings of grace. She had never once let her children or husband see her as unhappy. She wanted them to remember her as being this loving wife and mother that cared deeply for them. I feel that this books stands out before all other when speaking of the fight against cancer. Having to always look in the positives shows that you accept what you have. Kara Tippetts has shown that living with happiness, means to enjoy life. When always focusing on the negatives you always feel like you need to please others rather than yourself. Her life, I feel resembles the Catholic Social teaching, “Call to family, community, and participations.” This teaching, I feel resembles her because it shows that marriage and family must be supported and strengthened. Tippetts wanted to show her happiness to her family, wanting to show that she is not in any case, worried. She wanted them to know that she was going to be home soon, meaning with God in Heaven. So what I have taken out of her story is this one thing, “Always keep a positive mind and never show that you are unhappy, for at the end of life there is always a silver lining.

When you find pain in your life to be intense and overwhelming, remember the love in the heart of this mother.  Pray that her heart will inspire yours and that her strength will become your strength as you seek to face the crosses and hardships of life.

To set the scene: Madzy Brender à Brandis was a young mother with two small children, trying to survive through years of hardship and danger – and some unexpected pleasures. In May 1942, after her husband was suddenly taken prisoner and sent to a German camp, she began writing a diary to record the details of her life – for her husband to read when he returned, if he returned. She called it “this faithful book.” Here are some passages: 28 October 1944 [when the electricity was cut off because of lack of fuel for the generating plants]: “We have to use the daylight to its utmost, and we figure this out already in the morning. [At the end of the afternoon] We flew faster and faster to use the last bits of daylight, lay the table, lay everything ready so that at 5:30 we could eat in the dusk until we couldn’t find our mouths any more. Blackout and one candle, finished eating and washed the dishes. Read to children in pyjamas and then they to bed. Then unraveled a knitted baby blanket [so that the yarn could be used to knit other things] and at 9:00 blew out the candle and continued by moonlight. But now I’m going to bed, tired but satisfied with my efforts, though very sad about all the misery.” 1 November 1944 [after a threat of having the house demolished]: “Well, our house is still standing. I filled a laundry bag with many things, and everything is standing ready [in case there was a need to evacuate]. Because there is much flying again. At one moment an Allied fighter plane flew over very low; just then three German soldiers were walking past our house and one, “as a joke,” shot his gun at the plane. Tje! What a scare we had!” 24 December 1944 [addressing her husband, still in the camp]: “The whole house is in wonderful peace and I’m sitting by the fire, which gives me just enough light to write this. [The upper door of the small heater, when opened, gave a bit of light.] My Dicks, I don’t have to tell you how very much I miss you on this evening. It is a gnawing sense of longing. But beyond that there is a sorrow in me, a despair about everything, that pervades my whole being. Besides that, however, I’ve already for days seen the light of Christ coming closer and in these days that gives me hope. So does the waxing moon, the hard frost, the bright sun – in a word, all the light in nature after that endless series of misty, rainy, dark days. And so I sit close to my unsteady little light, that constantly abandons me, and think of you. It’s as though you are very close to me. I’m so grateful for everything that I have: your love, the two children, and everything around me.” 12 February 1945 [during the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-45, after one of her trips to forage for food]: “Today I went to Rika in Renswoude: 1¼ hours cycling there, 2½ hours walking back pushing a broken-down bicycle and with 25 pounds of rye [the whole grain, not flour] through streaming rain, while there was constant booming of artillery and bombing in the distance.

I just want you to know," my father said, "I forgive you." "For what?" I said. "For everything." It was just unbelievable. I had taken care of my mother when she was ill. I had taken care of my father after his heart surgery. Had they paid me? Had they worried that this might be a hardship for me? Had they asked my brother to take time off the tenure track to help them? And now, here it was my winter break, I had friends going on trips, Hong Kong, Myanmar, but no, I'd told them all I couldn't go because my father had said he wanted to visit me. So I let him come and gave him my bed, and I drive him across the Bay to visit his crazy old friends and play the filial game, and now this! When I was a teenager, he'd spent money on my brother for a car, a motorcycle, a three-wheeler even, and I wasn't allowed to go out after dark, and the housework I'd done, and the cooking, and who had to work her way through college? I felt the old familiar anger settling into my stomach again, and I remembered why I'd wanted to move far away from my family in the first place, vowing to stay away. I took a deep cleansing breath, the kind the therapist recommended when she talked about family dynamics and repeating the cycle and breaking the cycle, and I exhaled slowly over my teeth. I tried to count to ten but only made it to five. "I forgive you too," I said tightly. "You're welcome," my father agreed. "No, I said I FORGIVE YOU. I didn't thank you.

My loving Mother, strengthen my hope in the transformation of all sin and suffering in my life.  As I encounter the hardships of life, pray for me that I may never despair.  May I follow your example of faith, hope and love always.  Please hold me close to your Immaculate Heart and pray that I may share in the Resurrection of your divine Son.

He’s been inside this church so many times, on Sundays and holy days, for the yearly anniversary Mass of his mother’s death and for his own boyhood sacraments, but it has felt, on these occasions, like nothing more than an echoing and all-too-orderly indoor auction house, filled only with the improbable hopes of those who sit and kneel within, fashioning of their own desperation a god whose intercessions they rely upon for help amidst all the hardships for which they somehow hold him faultless.

they want them to be happy. Happy! Not empathetic contributing members of society. Not humble, wise and tolerant. Not strong in the face of adversity or grateful in the face of misfortune. I, on the other hand, have always wanted hardship for my kids. Real, honest hardship. Challenges big enough to make them empathetic and wise.

No hardship or suffering, her own or that of her poor, could undermine Mother Teresa’s conviction that God IS love, that all He does or permits is ultimately for some greater good and, therefore, an expression of His immense and unconditional love.

The link between ideas and action was a theme which featured large in the life of Mahatma Gandhi. It is not easy to decide to what extent, if at all, concepts of the West influenced him in his youth. He came from a traditional family in Gujarat, and had no contacts with westerners in his early years. However, the event which he regarded as a tragedy of his childhood, the secret eating of meat, was caused chiefly by his notion that it was meat-eating which had made the English powerful. Later, as a young man not quite twenty, he persuaded his reluctant and none-too-affluent family to send him to England to train as a barrister. Gandhi, who could be so frank about some matters, was reticent about the sentiments which had spurred him on to this venture. He simply wrote in his autobiography that he jumped at the chance to get away from the difficult studies at his college, when a family friend suggested that he should go to study in England. Reaching England, he became an ‘aspirant after being an English gentleman’ for about three months, then turned into a serious student and gradually pared his expenses down to the bare necessities. Gandhi had promised his mother that he would not touch meat in England, an undertaking which caused him some hardship until he discovered a vegetarian restaurant. At the same time he discovered books on vegetarianism. These made him a vegetarian by choice, when previously he had felt bound by his vow and had looked forward to becoming a meat eater ‘freely and openly some day’.37 It was an early personal experience of ideas as an aid to the better working of action. Gandhi was of a practical turn of mind that looked for ideas to suit the needs of situations. In spite of his deeply ingrained Hinduism, Gandhi’s intellectual flexibility made him accept those elements of western thought which fitted into the ethical and social scheme he considered desirable. Synthesis,

In this way God's grace, our universal mother, will give us gentleness, so that we begin to imitate Christ. This constitutes the third commandment; for the Lord says, 'Blessed are the gentle" (Matt. 5:5). Thus we become like a firmly -rooted rock, unshaken by the storms and tempests of life, always the same, whether rich or poor, in ease or hardship, in honor or dishonor. In short, at every moment and whatever we do we will be aware that all things, whether sweet or bitter, pass away, and that this life is a path leading to the future life. We will recognize that, whether we like it or not, what happens, happens; to be upset about it is useless, and moreover deprives us of the crown of patience and shows us to be in revolt against the will of God.

White Christian America had its golden age in the 1950s, after the hardships and victories of World War Ii and before the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. June Cleaver was its mother, Andy Griffith was its sheriff, Norman Rockwell was its artist. and Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale were its ministers.

The first professor you meet in life is your mother; the second is hardship, and the last is death.

The Awakening Land" p628-629 Hardship and work, that's what his mother always harped on. Once when he had refused to work on the lot, she had said, "You're going to live longer than I do, Chancey. Watch for all kinds of new-fangled notions to take away folks' troubles without their having to work. That's what folks today want and that's what will ruin them more than anything else." Could there be something after all in this hardship-and-work business, he pondered. He had thought hardship and work the symptoms of a pioneer era, things of the past. He believed that his generation had outlived and outlawed them, was creating a new life of comfort, ease and peace. And yet war, the cruelest hardship of all, war between brothers, was on them today like a madness. Did it mean that the need for strength and toughness was to be always with them; that the farther they advanced, the more brilliant and intelligent they became, the more terrible would be the hardship that descended upon them, and the more crying the need of hardihood to be saved.

at the seat. Instead of blowing his top, he picked me up in his arms and said, "You did it?" I nodded, "Yes I did it!" "But, look son." He tried to explain, "I can't go out with a bottomless pajama — I am a man". I whispered, "And so am I". He just stared, and embraced me. And from that day I got proper pajamas to wear. Dad was a great friend, a very understanding and loving person. Time flies fast — my father's leave was almost over, but the construction work still remained incomplete. He had to go back to Amritsar to resume his duties, and my mother badly needed more money. Two days before his departure he took a loan of Rs. 1,500 from a friend, a Zargar (ornament maker), to somehow finish the construction work, and mortgaged our part of the haveli for this amount. This Rs. 1,500 brought a lot of trouble and hardship to the family as the interest for the loan went on adding. My father resigned his job as a postman and searched for a new clerical job. He did his best to pay off the loan; he but could not. Destiny's smile had changed into a fearsome frown. Soon my little sister Guro was born. While my father slogged in Amritsar to support the family and pay the monthly interest, my mother and grandmother somehow managed to survive. I fell sick, very very sick and the chubby child was soon a bundle of bones. The fair skin was tarnished and looked quite dusky. The handsome Kidar Nath became an ugly urchin. Lack of nourishment also made me a dull boy. The only thought that kept me alive was that my father was my best friend, and that I must stand by my best friend and help him to surmount his difficulties. Having found a tenant for the rebuilt Haveli, we all moved to Amritsar. Across our house lived a shop-keeper known for being a miser. He called a carpenter to fix the main door to his dwelling, because the top of the frame had cracked. A robust argument ensued because the shop-keeper would pay only half a rupee, while the carpenter wanted one. His reason being that an appropriate piece of wood had to be cut to match the area being repaired and then he would have to level the surfaces at a very awkward angle. But the owner was adamant and said, "Just nail the piece of wood, do not level it or do any fancy work, because I shall pay you only half a rupee", as he walked away in a huff.

Many, including my late grandfather, fled the mother country because of economic hardship from the Opium Wars. England coerced China into accepting the black tar in payment for tea and cracked China open like a ginkgo nut. Old injuries still itch.

Nature has its own hardships, but its own kindnesses, too, like straw and room to sleep and the are of a mother for her young.

Twenty-five years of age, Jesse was young in years, but the fatherless boy had ridden a long, hard trail of poverty, hardship, and bigotry before his mother’s deathbed revelation directed his path to the Franklin family.

A part war drama, part coming-of-age story, part spiritual pilgrimage, Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is the story of a young woman who experienced more hardships before graduating high school than most people do in a lifetime. Yet her heartaches are only half the story; the other half is a story of resilience, of leaving her lifelong home in Germany to find a new home, a new life, and a new love in America. Mildred Schindler Janzen has given us a time capsule of World War II and the years following it, filled with pristinely preserved memories of a bygone era. Ken Gire New York Times bestselling author of All the Gallant Men The memoir of Mildred Schindler Janzen will inform and inspire all who read it. This is a work that pays tribute to the power and resiliency of the human spirit to endure, survive, and overcome in pursuit of the freedom and liberty that all too many take for granted. Kirk Ford, Jr., Professor Emeritus, History Mississippi College Author of OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance, 1943-1945 A compelling first-person account of life in Germany during the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. A well written, true story of a young woman overcoming the odds and rising above the tragedies of loss of family and friends during a savage and brutal war, culminating in her triumph in life through sheer determination and will. A life lesson for us all. Col. Frank Janotta (Retired), Mississippi Army National Guard Mildred Schindler Janzen’s touching memoir is a testimony to God’s power to deliver us from the worst evil that men can devise. The vivid details of Janzen’s amazing life have been lovingly mined and beautifully wrought by Sherye Green into a tender story of love, gratitude, and immeasurable hope. Janzen’s rich, post-war life in Kansas serves as a powerful reminder of the great promise of America. Troy Matthew Carnes, Author of Rasputin’s Legacy and Dudgeons and Daggers World War II was horrific, and we must never forget. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is a must-read that sheds light on the pain the Nazis and then the Russians inflicted on the German Jews and the German people. Mildred Schindler Janzen’s story, of how she and her mother and brother survived the war and of the special document that allowed Mildred to come to America, is compelling. Mildred’s faith sustained her during the war's horrors and being away from her family, as her faith still sustains her today. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is a book worth buying for your library, so we never forget. Cynthia Akagi, Ph.D. Northcentral University I wish all in the world could read Mildred’s story about this loving steel magnolia of a woman who survived life under Hitler’s reign. Mildred never gave up, but with each suffering, grew stronger in God’s strength and eternal hope. Beautifully written, this life story will captivate, encourage, and empower its readers to stretch themselves in life, in love, and with God, regardless of their circumstances. I will certainly recommend this book. Renae Brame, Author of Daily Devotions with Our Beloved, God’s Peaceful Waters Flow, and Snow and the Eternal Hope How utterly inspiring to read the life story of a woman whose every season reflects God’s safe protection and unfailing love. When young Mildred Schindler escaped Nazi Germany, only to have her father taken by Russians and her mother and brother hidden behind Eastern Europe’s Iron Curtain, she courageously found a new life in America. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is her personal witness to God’s guidance and provision at every step of that perilous journey. How refreshing to view a full life from beginning to remarkable end – always validating that nothing is impossible with God. Read this book and you will discover the author’s secret to life: “My story is a declaration that choosing joy and thankfulness over bitterness and anger, even amid difficult circumsta

I came to see I was not just alone; I was free. Free of him. Free to be. So many women's lives are hindered, hampered, and ruined by husbands who will not leave long after they have ceased to be husbands or fathers. Dead wearing a hat, these men actively and energetically visit untold woe on those they once had loved. I was not thus afflicted I saw.

If you ask me, everyone is a little too interested in their children’s happiness. Ask anyone what they wish for their kids and they’ll all say they want them to be happy. Happy! Not empathetic contributing members of society. Not humble, wise and tolerant. Not strong in the face of adversity or grateful in the face of misfortune. I, on the other hand, have always wanted hardship for my kids. Real, honest hardship. Challenges big enough to make them empathetic and wise.

One day, fed up with their life of hardship and grinding poverty, Rosakutty’s mother had leapt into the river from the boat. Because she was a strong swimmer, she did not die. She reached the shore by employing the crawl and the backstroke. That was the day she realised that the poor and the hungry ought not to learn swimming.

was here on the backs of generations who had struggled through hardship and sacrifice—the blessed recipient in a long lineage of striving African Americans to have a stable, educated, middle-class life in America. Mom-Mom and Daddio’s generation grew up in the throes of segregation and immense poverty. Gigi’s family had escaped the Jim Crow South. My mother had fought through decades of school district bureaucracies, financial uncertainty, and Daddio’s bullshit to get me to this point. And she was going to be damned if I didn’t go to college because of some music I was doing at basement parties with homeboys named Jazz and Ready Rock.

The harness of motherhood chafes my skin, and yet, occasionally I find a predictable integrity in it too, a freedom of a different sort: from complexity and choice and from the reams of unscripted time upon which I used to write my days, bearing the burden of their authorship. It does not escape me that in this last sentiment I am walking over the grave of my sex. The state of motherhood speaks to my native fear of achievement. It is a demotion, a displacement, an opportunity to give up. I have the sense of history watching, from its club chair, my response to this demotion with some amusement. Will I give in, graciously, gratefully, handing back my life as something I had on loan? Or will I put up a fight? Like moving back from the city to the small town where you were born, before exclaiming at its tedium you are advised to remember that other people live here, have always lived here. Men, when they visit, are constrained by no such considerations of tact. But it is not merely a taboo against complaint that makes the hardship of motherhood inadmissible: like all loves this one has a conflicted core, a grain of torment that buffs the pearl of pleasure; unlike other loves, this conflict has no possibility of resolution.

Her thoughts went to the difficult decision that had brought them to this place and would all too soon be the cause of their parting. The sacrifices parents made for their children often brought heartache and even hardship, but the love of a mother or father for their children knew no limits.

don’t know you, Mother. You chose to be away. You look like you’ve done well. Me and Grandma were left to famine and hardship. I don’t want to stay with you now.

You Are So Wonderful You lay bare your brain for others to learn Great lessons you always share From you, there is so much to hear Your head is crowned with wisdom You show the world how things are done I call your name with pride My love for you I cannot hide You have a heart that is never weak It does not break, it only bends When you land into hardships You find a way to rise You manage to put on a smile Stand back up and walk another mile Despite any pain life I am yet to meet someone of your calibre With so much courage to endure And the patent instincts of a survivor Oh, woman of valour! You need no stamp of approval from anyone Because victory is your birth right Superwoman, you are so wonderful

Time in the valley will teach you to be a man, Nathan," she had said. "It's where your character will form. I hope you go through the valley so that you'll learn so that you'll learn how to love and feel and understand. And when life wounds you, I hope it is because you loved people, not because you mistreated them." It was a blessing of sorts, a blessing that forges love in the darkest places. There have been times, especially during those early years without her, that I thought time in the valley was anything but a blessing, but now I know otherwise. As I grew, I began to understand what my mother meant: It is those times of struggle and pain that teach us how to live. It's not really living until you've thrown your heart and soul on the line, rising failure and suffering loss. And I have come to realize that we're never alone; everyone has been through their own valley or is walking through it now... There were times when the grief in my life made it impossible to believe that God was alive and working, or the doubts were so great it seemed hopeless to believe anything at all, but as I look at the faces in the seats before me I now once again that we're all hear for a reason, a purpose that is often beyond us. -The Christmas Blessing by Donna VanLeire

The true prize, we all knew, was that we were together, a friendship melded out of devastating diagnoses and hardship, facing death as one, never letting one another give up, picking one another up when we couldn’t take another second

I think, as this war goes on, we will all have to look more deeply. These questions are not about them, but about us.” Vianne felt tears sting her eyes. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Antoine always took care of everything. The Wehrmacht and the Gestapo are more than I can handle.” “Don’t think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.” “It’s all breaking me. I need to be more like Isabelle. She is so certain of everything. This war is black and white for her. Nothing seems to scare her.” “Isabelle will have her crisis of faith in this, too. As will we all. I have been here before, in the Great War. I know the hardships are just beginning. You must stay strong.” “By believing in God.” “Yes, of course, but not only by believing in God. Prayers and faith will not be enough, I’m afraid. The path of righteousness is often dangerous. Get ready, Vianne. This is only your first test. Learn from it.” Mother leaned forward and hugged Vianne again. Vianne held on tightly, her face pressed to the scratchy wool habit.

Moms are saints. Angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it’s like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

But as my mother used to remind me, "You've never been interested in easy.

If I have learnt anything, it is that the human spirit is resilient and can endure much hardship and tragedy. It really is all in the mind and if we can master our minds, our bodies come along for the ride.

On one side were the survival skills he was acquiring; on the other, a list of things that he was forced to endure—running, cold, wet, lack of sleep, etc. Then he added a series of arguments in each column. On the pain side, he noted, “What is a Ranger in the life of writer-photographer?” After lunch, he saw his commanding officer and walked up and told him he was leaving. “I don’t go along with the principle of hardship for its own sake,” he said. Just like that, he was gone. What Brand worried about most was the phone call to tell his mother he had quit.

This state, this place, is like no other. It is beauty and horror; savior and destroyer. Here, where survival is a choice that must be made over and over, in the wildest place in America, on the edge of civilization, where water in all its forms can kill you, you learn who you are. Not who you dream of being, not who you imagined you were, not who you were raised to be. All of that will be torn away in the months of icy darkness, when frost on the windows blurs your view and the world gets very small and you stumble into the truth of your existence. You learn what you will do to survive. That lesson, that revelation, as my mother once told me about love, is Alaska’s great and terrible gift. Those who come for beauty alone, or for some imaginary life, or those who seek safety, will fail. In the vast expanse of this unpredictable wilderness, you will either become your best self and flourish, or you will run away, screaming, from the dark and the cold and the hardship. There is no middle ground, no safe place; not here, in the Great Alone. For

In our family, the presents we gave one another were almost always homemade. I thought that was the definition of a gift: something you made for someone else. We made all our Christmas gifts: piggy banks from old Clorox bottles, hot pads from broken clothespins, and puppets from retired socks. My mother says it was because we had no money for store-bought presents. It didn’t seem like a hardship to me; it was something special.

A baby who has experienced an abrupt loss of her biological mother requires extra care and recognition of separation distress. When this doesn’t happen, the early rupture can cause lifelong heartache. If this is part of your story, I hope it’s validating to know that early maternal separation is a hardship.

The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable; on some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion. And yet, in the flickering of those candles, I saw something else. I saw an expression of the spirit of millions of people around the world: the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play.

The pandemic has brought out all that is ugly, particularly the type of governance that could best be declared as anti-poor, discriminatory, and disrespectful of human rights, to say the least. Not too far from the dreadful Marcosian years, I recall the hardships of the Martial Law years, and how in the present, the many ways people are coping and struggling against the tyranny of the oppressive regime in the time of COVID.

Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms; they're the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. No one can possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand, women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

Mothers are adept at providing love from all angles, so much so that you often don’t realise you’re missing out on love from other people until much later in life. Marie took the brunt of the hardship and hid it well from me.

The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.

Look down with maternal clemency, Most Blessed Virgin, upon all your children. Consider the anxiety of bishops who fear their flocks will be tormented by a terrible storm of evils. Heed the anguish of so many people, fathers and mothers of families who are uncertain about their future and beset by hardship and cares. (Christi Matri Rosarii)

Once a boy came running in from play and asked, Mother , what is milk? My friends say it is creamy and white and has the sweetest taste, second only to the nectar of the gods. Please, mother, I want milk to drink. The mother, who was too pure to buy milk, mixed some flour in water, added jaggery, and gave it to the boy. The boy drank it and danced in joy, saying, Now I, too, know what milk tastes like! And the mother, who through all the years of her hardship had never shed a tear, wept at his trust and at her deception.

On the way home I told Max that on my deathbed provided that the pains are not too great, I will be very content. I forgot to add and later omitted intentionally that the best of what I have written stems from this ability to die contentedly. All those good and strongly convincing passages always deal with the fact that someone is dying, that this is very difficult for him, that in it he experiences an injustice and at least a hardship and that for the reader at least in my opinion this is moving. For me, however, believing as I do in my ability to be content on my deathbed, such depictions are secretly a game, indeed I am happy to die in the dying man, therefore calculatingly take advantage of the attention the reader concentrates on death, am far more clearheaded than he, who I assume will lament on his deathbed, and my lament is therefore as perfect as possible, does not, for example, suddenly break off like a real lament, but rather trails away beautifully and purely. It’s like my perpetual lamenting to my mother over woes not nearly as great as the lament led one to believe. For my mother, to be sure, I didn’t need as much artistic effort as for the reader.

Mother’s tenderness toward my younger sisters caused more tears to pool in my eyes. I felt too old to be hugged and caressed by her, yet my body yearned for her touch; at least this once. I couldn't recall the last time she had shared the same warmth with me. The countless months of hardship had created an ocean of distance between us. It would be too awkward to hug her now. I sat across from her with tear-stained cheeks, wondering if she could feel my sadness and if she knew I loved her unconditionally.

Uncle Jarrod groaned. “What are you doing here?” “I came to have a word. Good thing I did, too, I see you’re up to your usual tyranny. Do me a favor and get that blade away from her throat.” “Gerda!” the duke barked. “Go home at once! This is not your concern!” “Not my concern, eh?” Miss Gerda approached Uncle Jarrod, her arms folded. “I assure you, what I have to say concerns every one of us. Jarrod, do you not recognize this child?” “Nothing you say is going to spare her. She is arrested for treason.” Miss Gerda watched him. Being much shorter, she had to look up to meet his eyes. Her plain dress and apron looked very drab beside the king, but she regarded him without embarrassment. “You’ve been friendly with the duke a long time, Jarrod. Came an awful lot in your younger days. And you liked me then, remember? Especially that summer when you came for a long stay. You like me… quite often. And I was stupid enough to think it would last.” “Silence, woman, your words are meaningless. Nobody wants to hear this.” A trace of dread lurked behind Uncle Jarrod’s eyes. “That fall, I left the duke’s manor and returned to my home kingdom of Clerlione. I had told the duke my mother was ill, but that wasn’t it. You see, Jarrod, something came of the time you and I spent together.” She raised a hand to the duke and his prisoner. “Briette.” Briette, still pinned against the duke, suffered a jolt so hard it nearly stopped her heart. She could not have moved even if the duke had let her. Uncle Jarrod’s face was pinched with contempt. “Don’t be a fool.” “Think about it, Jarrod. That summer. It was eighteen years ago. Briette is seventeen. Look at her face, you’ll see.” Uncle Jarrod cleared his throat and stared at the floor. He raised a hand and stroked his beard. It seemed a long time before he spoke. “Let the child come here.” The duke lowered his hands. Briette started walking, though she felt separated from herself, as if watching this happen to somebody else. She made the mistake of letting her eyes drift to her sisters. They stared at her with a mixture of wide-eyed horror and pale disbelief. Arialain had covered her face and was shaking. It seemed a very long walk though in truth it was only six or seven paces. Uncle Jarrod gripped her chin and lifted her face. Briette stared into his clear blue eyes and tried not to think. He looked deeply troubled. Shaken. He released her chin. “It is hard to say. There are little things…. But I’m not sure.” “Then you must take my word,” said Miss Gerda. “If she is what you say, then why didn’t you raise her? She came here as an orphan.” Miss Gerda grew somber. “I wasn’t ready to have a child. Without a husband to support me, how could I care for it? I had to work. I left the baby with my sister in Clerlione. She was married but had no children, and was happy to take Briette. I returned to work for the duke and for two years, all was well. And then came the Red Fever plague.” Briette hugged her sides, her eyes shut. This was too much to bear. She wanted Miss Gerda to stop talking. “By the time I reached Clerlione, my sister and her husband were dead. I was frantic, thinking Briette had died too. But I found a neighbor who told me that my sister had given the baby to the king of Runa Realm. I was shocked. And for a while, quite miserable. But in time, I came to be glad of it. As a princess, she would never know poverty or hardship. So I stayed at the duke’s and kept my silence. But occasionally, at a festival or in the market square, I’d see her. And I was proud.” She smiled at Briette. A short silence followed. Then Heidel spoke up. “Let me be quite clear on this. Briette is Uncle Jarrod’s daughter?” “And

Cantor was born to a family of Russian immigrants, Jan. 31, 1892, in New York’s Lower East Side. His mother died soon after his birth; his father died of pneumonia a year later. His given name was either Isadore Itzkowitz or Edward Israel Iskowitz (he claimed both during his life). He was raised by a grandmother who was 60 when he was born. In his autobiography he describes a childhood filled with tenement-life hardship, “poverty, misery, and disease.” At 6, when he entered public school, his Grandma Esther enrolled him under her name, Kantrowitz, which the registrar wrote down as “Kanter.” When he was older, he changed it to “Cantor.” He began calling himself “Eddie” because his girlfriend Ida Tobias, the “belle of Henry Street,” liked the way it sounded on him. In his own words, he was “truant from school, pilferer of pushcarts, hooligan, street fighter, liar.” He slept on rooftops and sang for change on street corners. For years he remembered wearing shoes “pulpy with wet cardboard” and clothes that held the damp of snow all day long.

When Morgan looked at the pedigrees of families like the Kallikaks, he did not see undeniable proof of the heredity of feeblemindedness. He saw instead many generations of poor people suffering enduring hardships. “It is obvious that these groups of individuals have lived under demoralizing social conditions that might swamp a family of average persons,” Morgan wrote.

We are all masters of our own destiny, my mother used to tell me. Even though we can’t always choose what happens to us, we can choose how we respond. In the end, she said, the way we handle the tough things life throws at us—adversity, loss, hardship, rejection—is what defines each of us as a human being. Whether we face them with courage and grace and honesty or choose to feel sorry for ourselves, blame someone else, lash out at life’s injustices with anger and cruelty—that’s what makes us who we are.