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A Way To #HonorYourMom This Mother’s Day

A Way To #HonorYourMom This Mother’s Day
Mom

Photo of my sister-in-law, my mother, and me.

Mother’s Day  is coming up on May 11th, and I have to admit that it brings a tinge of  bitter-sweetness for me.  My own mother passed away just three months before I first became a mother myself, so of course I think of her, and miss her on that day of the year more than all others.    I say just a tinge though, because the bitter of  missing her is nearly obliterated by the sweet immense joy, chaos, and love my own four children bring to me each day.  Still, for that reason Mother’s Day is an emotional one for me.  As anyone who has lost a parent knows, it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how prepared you believed you were. It is an acutely felt loss, where the umbrella of the generation before you is closed, exposing you to the world in a new unsheltered way.  Granted I was an adult when she passed away, and so I am grateful for the thirty-three years of my life that I had her, I know how fortunate I am to have had that.

Children need their mother; they need their mother’s love and protection, the devotion above all else that only a mother gives.  I know I was blessed to have grown up with that, but I don’t think I knew how much I truly needed her until I gave birth to my own first child. Like most of us I had just lovingly taken for granted that she was there. Quite suddenly when I gave birth to my own daughter, I understood.  As a new mother I felt I needed her more than ever, really it was not that I needed her more, but that I wanted her more than ever.  It is impossible to register what your own mother went through with pregnancy, birthing, nursing, caring, and nurturing, the scope of physical, and emotional outpouring that motherhood demands, until you are in the midst of it yourself.

Photo by Michelle Amarante

With my own little people , Photo by Michelle Amarante

I can no longer express that gratitude to her in person, but I think, and hope that I did well enough when she was still alive. Instead I know that I can honor her by being the best possible mother that I can be to my own children. I try to pass on her legacy of love, and compassion.  That is why I think Samahope’s #HonorYourMom campaign resonates with me so deeply. It gives me the opportunity to honor my own mother while giving another mother the opportunity for her children to grow up under the umbrella of her love by providing a safe birth.  So if you are thinking about ways to #HonorYourMom that would be truly meaningful this Mother’s Day, check out the Samahope #HonorYourMom campaign page and see the beautiful tributes that have already been posted.  Here is how it works:

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1. Pick a photo of you & your Mom – Upload a childhood picture of you and Mom on the #HonorYourMom website, and write what makes her so amazing to you. (You can also add an Instagram video.)
2. Donate in your Mother’s Name – Make a donation to support safe births and life-changing medical treatments for other moms in need.
3. Your mother will get a gift she’ll cherish – A special dedication page is created for your mom, and she’ll get a personalized gift in the mail for Mother’s Day.

 

Those of us fortunate enough to know our mother’s love, and to be able to pass that on to our own children, can’t take those gifts for granted. Too many mothers still die in childbirth; too many children are forced to grow up without their mother.  This can often cause them to end up stuck in the cycle of extreme poverty. No mother should lose their own life-giving birth, and no child should have to grow up without their mother’s love. Samahope hopes to provide 1,000 safe births to mothers in need with the #HonorYourMom campaign. What better way to honor mothers everywhere this Mother’s Day.

 

Samahope Gives Us The Opportunity To Do Something Remarkable

Samahope Gives Us The Opportunity To Do Something Remarkable

samahope open copy

Back in 2006 Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson published an article in Wired Magazine that coined the term  Crowdsourcing by combining the terms crowd and outsourcing to describe a trend on the internet.  Of course crowdsourcing was not a new idea, but this was a new term, and the interment was making it possible to take crowdsourcing and crowdfunding to a whole new level. These days it has become an almost  mainstream launching pad from entrepreneurs to artists to fund projects and collect data through the various sites that have popped up to do so.

Samahope has a different vision for crowdfunding, and has come up with a way to give us each an opportunity to do something remarkable to transform and uplift another person’s life. Read the rest of this entry