What are mothers doing on this Mothers Day?

Mothers Day 2007. Let's see ... some of the less celebratory things mothers will be doing in Middle Eastern countries this year:
Zuhre Dyab will be remembering, as she does everyday, her son, Mohammed who was killed in his small village outside Tyre (Lebanon) fighting to retain his home, his culture, his right to his humanity and that of his family and growing children. She may even remember what her other son, Ali, told me when I visited them late one night in January 2007:
" Next time you come here my mother will be holding a photo of me as a martyr."

When I protested he said, "What else can I do about the situation? I know that if we sacrifice now future generations can be free. I saw my best friend badly burned in a bomb attack during the summer and I took him away from the fighting on my motorcycle."

I asked, "Did he survive?"

The young man answered, "Actually he was mostly dead when I took him away. His skin was black from burns and it was falling off his body in strips. I removed him so that the dogs wouldn't eat his body."

Maybe Zuhre is wondering who will remove her son, Ali, from the fire and the bombs when the next battle starts in southern Lebanon and he is burned.

Maryam, from Qana, yes, the Qana where the only thing that thrives are the ever-growing memorials to yet another massacre. As incredible as it sounds, Maryam lost 52 relatives in a single night when IDF missiles hit the basement in which they family had been sheltering for 17 straight days. A baby as young as ten months doesn't stand a chance against missiles and collapsing building materials... neither, as is turns out, did 51 other people, including Maryam's hardy husband of 40-plus year.

Read the article Don't Send your Sons...

While mothers in America are taken to brunch and receive flowers and phone call from their kids, thousands of Iraqi mothers have fled their homes (remember, the home is the heart of the Iraqi family where women find, not only security and peace, but also empowerment, respect, and autonomy) and wait with thousands of other mothers and children at the largest refugee processing center in the world outside Damascus. On the way to this haven of bureaucracy and paperwork, these families have had to outwit and outrun the many militias and religious factions lying in wait along the highway who rob, preach to, and threaten them. Then, when they are finally allowed into Syria, they must find a place to stay -- defined as "visitors" until their paperwork is complete (about 6 months and more) -- competing the thousands of other families just like themselves.

Am I chastising the might Mothers of America on this all-American Mothers Day turned into another Hallmark or Disney Day-o-Spending-to-Substitute-for-Reality? Not really. I mean, go ahead, enjoy the holiday (if it was really a holiday, wouldn't it be on a work-day... ? But, no, then moms would have to find babysitters while they went to work as usual). You deserve it.

But so do the mothers whose families and kids our policies are diminishing everyday.