Just in time for Mother’s Day, a new ad is shining a light on the often invisible suffering of our fellow mothers:
SickKids Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for children’s health, released this 90-second commercial in honor of the mothers of sick children. It features a montage of mothers: one sitting on the edge of a bed next to an empty crib, staring a stuffed animal; one sitting alone in an empty church; one lying in bed, staring at the wall; one running in the park.
Read more:
Blessing your children: It’s not just for sneezes
One by one, they begin to break down. Alone in a hospital hallway; learning how to insert a PICC line; on the floor of the laundry room; at the kitchen table, surrounded by medications; in the car in a hospital parking garage. Tears. Anger. Fear. Despair.
Then, one by one, they begin to put themselves back together.
One whispers “get up,” one wipes away tears, one takes a deep breath, one says to the mirror, “Okay. I got this.”
And then they return to their sick children, with no trace of what they are suffering left on their faces. They radiate strength and courage for the teenager with cancer, or the infant amidst the IV lines.
It’s a living Pieta, and a powerful reminder that Mother’s Day is about more than flowers and brunches. We all suffer for the sake of our children, but mothers of sick kids suffer an agony I can’t imagine. I pray that I never have to suffer that way … but if that prayer is not answered, may I find the same kind of strength and grace.
And today we celebrate...