Regardless of their age, the large majority of mothers care for their children in a thousand little ways that their children tend to take for granted. Unfortunately, most of us don't realize how much our mothers mean to us until they are no longer around. We may thank them on Mother's Day with a card and some Mother's Day flowers and that is about all. Of course, there are many people who truly appreciate their mothers and express their gratitude for them.

Given that my mother Violet Zelinski passed away while I was writing 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting (Vipbooks, 2007), from which this article is excerpted, allow me to share how I never got to express my love and appreciation for her as much as I would have liked. On the first Sunday of February 2007 I was contemplating whether I should go to a musical performance at our local jazz club. I gave consideration to the fact that on the previous Sunday I had not visited my mother, which I had done virtually every Sunday for almost twenty years. Thus, I decided to skip the musical performance.

I picked up some items from a local supermarket deli and headed over to my mother's apartment. This particular Sunday my sister, Elaine, and her husband, Lorne, also showed up and we had an enjoyable dinner together. Later I noticed that my mother was wheezing after she climbed a flight of stairs. She also complained about how her legs had gotten really stiff lately.

Even so, I would later find out that my mother told others that she had a great day, because my sister, my brother-in-law, and I had visited her. What's more, earlier in the day, just as my mother was about to call my brother, Kenny, she received a call from him. The call was special to my mother because my brother lives outside the city and only visted her once or twice a year.

As it turned out, this was the last Sunday dinner that I enjoyed with my mother. You can imagine how fortunate I felt that I had skipped the musical performance. Two days later I called my mother to ask her how she was doing. She complained of severe headaches that wouldn't respond to Tylenol. Later in the evening my sister and her husband drove my mother to the hospital. The doctors decided to keep her for two or three days because of her low oxygen level but they didn't think it was anything serious.

On Wednesday afternoon when I visited my mother at the hospital, I was stunned to find out that the doctors had diagnosed her with acute leukemia. The head doctor indicated that she could live for several months if they gave her blood transfusions and chemo drugs along with morphine. Needless to say, I left the hospital in somewhat of a daze.

That evening I decided that I would visit my mother at least once every day until she passed away. I also decided to get a nice black book in which I would write down all the special things that I wanted to thank her for. I was also going to encourage other people to write in the black book all the things that they liked about my mother.

As fate would have it, the next day my mother took a turn for the worse. The doctor phoned early in the morning and indicated she had only a few days left with her likely losing mental capabilities in a day or two. Soon after I got to the hospital, I decided that I should bring my mother's best friend, Mary Leshchyshyn, to see my mother one last time while she still had her mental capabilities. After I brought Mary to the hospital, she and my mother were able to spend half an hour together while the rest of us went for coffee.

When we got back to my mother's hospital room, I noticed that my mother had gotten worse and was gasping for oxygen. At this point I felt that she might not last more than a day. So I immediately thanked my mother for two or three important things that she had done for me. She responded - as she struggled for oxygen - by thanking me specifically for having come over every Sunday. (At this point I truly realized how much my weekly visits meant to her.) I also told my mother that the reason that I had never married was that I had never met a wonderful woman like her.

Shortly after, my mother's best friend, Mary, stated that my mother looked really tired and that she should go home to let my mother rest. My mother was able to say a few more words to Mary including "Don't get what I got." Mary's last words to my mother were "See you later." I would find out soon after from my sister that my mother whispered, "Oh no, you won't." But Mary didn't hear these words.

Sadly, while I was driving Mary back to her apartment, my mother passed away. My sister, Elaine, and her husband, Lorne; my cousin, Jerry, and his wife, Lil; and the hospital chaplain, Blaine Allan, were there with her and said a prayer while she passed away. Surprisingly, my mother at eighty-five had her mental capabilities and even a great memory right until her last minutes, given that she was giving instructions to my sister about the funeral, including the dress she wanted to be wearing and how she wanted her head tilted just a bit in the coffin instead of straight up.

Later that morning, when my sister arrived, my mother told her, "I'm done." My sister responded, "What are you talking about?" My mother replied, "I lost the stone from my family ring. It's gone so that means that I am gone too." My mother was so sweet and so strong during her last hours. Even the hospital staff talked about the deep affection they had developed for her during her short stay in the hospital.

As hard as my mother's death was on me, there was something remarkably spiritual about it. There were also a few things for which I had to feel grateful. My mother did not have to suffer for a long time like so many people do in their later years. I was thankful that Elaine, Lorne, Jerry, Lil, and Blaine were there with her to say a prayer when she passed away. I also felt relieved that%u2008I had brought Mary to the hospital so that she and my mother got to spend half an hour together before my mother left us rather unexpectedly that day.

After I left the hospital that fateful afternoon, I felt blessed that I was able to see my mother her last day and thank her for at least two or three special things that she had done for me. But I was also terribly saddened that I did not get to give her a hundred more reasons why she had meant so much to me. So I wrote a letter to my mother, which follows this photo of her in her twenties:

February 8, 2007

Dear Mom:

I am so saddened that you left us rather suddenly while knowing that in many ways it was the right thing for you to do. I am sorry that I was not there when you passed on but I know that you appreciate that I brought your best friend Mary to see you one last time and I know that Mary appreciated having the chance to see you one last time. Unfortunately, while I was driving Mary back to her home, you left us but Elaine, Lorne, Lil, Jerry, and Blaine were there with you.

I will miss you. I hope that we meet in Heaven. I know that from the way you treated me and the way you treated others - and how much they held you in great esteem and admiration - that you have an outstanding chance of entering Heaven - far greater than me, that's for sure. But I will remember the great things that people loved about you and try to instill as many of your great qualities in myself as I can from now on. Perhaps I will get into Heaven as easily as you.

Because you left rather suddenly, there are so many things that I wanted to thank you for but didn't get a chance. Here are just some of the things I wanted to thank you for:


• Thank you for having stuck by my side so many times and gotten yourself in trouble with Dad when he thought I should be doing something else with my life.
• Thank you for lending me the money to publish my first book although, as you said when I was paying you back, you thought you would never see the money again.
• Thank you for making a prompt decision around eight years ago to sell your house and move into the St Andrew's Retirement Complex - I know that your living in the apartment complex rather than continuing living isolated in the house added several years to your life - and of course joy in other people's lives.
• Thank you for still making the great cabbage rolls this last Christmas that you made all these years even though you had been quite ill just before the holidays.
• Thank you for having taken care of your best friend Mary by buying groceries for her when she couldn't make it out on her own due to her low energy level.
• Thank you for having had the ability to always be so pleasant with everyone that you met.
• Thank you for your appreciation of other people - I can't recall your ever having said a bad word about anyone.

I could go on forever about the things that I would like to thank you for, but I just want to wrap it up by saying I am somewhat mystified - but nevertheless proud of you - for being able to live to the age of eighty-five in generally good health and then make a fairly rapid exit from this planet without having to suffer like so many people do. Great work, Mom!

But I am going to miss you a great deal. Not having the regular Sunday dinners as we have for so many years and not having someone special to phone every day or two are going to be hard on me.
I promise to think of you as I live the rest of my life. I will give much thought every day about the types of things you would have wanted me to do and how you would have liked me to treat other people. I know that this will make me a much better person and I hope that I will have as many great people mourn my paspassing from this planet as will come to mourn yours.

Thank you, Mom

With all my love

Ernie

I placed this letter under my mother's arm in the coffin when members of my close family and I visited the funeral home to pay our respects the day before the funeral. The next day, after I read a copy of the letter as the eulogy during the funeral service conducted by Father Don Bodnar, a good friend of mine commented that this is the type of letter we should all write to our mothers while they are still living.

To be sure, you should thank your mother a lot for all that she means to you while she is still alive - not only with letters but also with thoughtful comments every time you see her. Clearly, your mother deserves much more than a card, flowers, or candy once a year on Mother's Day. Why not send her a handwritten letter at least once a month? Start today because you never know when she may lose her life suddenly.

"All that I am or ever hope to be," remarked Abraham Lincoln, "I owe to my angel Mother." George Washington declared, "I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual, and physical education which I received from my mother." Jewish people have a proverb about mothers that is even more eloquent: "God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers."

Here are a few words from Washington Irving to remind us a little more about how important mothers are to us: "A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."

I was fortunate that I saw my mother fifteen to twenty minutes before she passed away and was able to at least thank her for a few things. I am also blessed that I get to dedicate this book to her and will have her name live on at least in some small spiritual way due to me - and, of course, due to the great person that she was. You may not get these same opportunities. So again, thank your mother a lot while she is still alive - and not only on Mother's Day. Trust me - you will deeply regret it later if you don't.

NOTE: The above article is adapted from the chapter called Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive! in the book 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting (Vipbooks)by Ernie Zelinski. The book is dedicated to Ernie's mother Violet Zelinski (Waselyna Gordychuk) who passed away while Ernie was writing the latest edition of the book.

Following is a photo of Ernie's mother Violet Zelinski (on right) with her best friend Mary Leshchyshyn:

Also See The True Spirit of Mother's Day

101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting

Download the Free E-book of 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting with 17 free chapters at Ernie Zelinski's Creative Free E-Books Website.

Purchase 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting at:

101 Really Important Things at Amazon.com

or:

101 Really Important Things at BarnesandNoble.com

About the Author

Ernie J. Zelinski is a leading authority on early retirement and solo-entrepreneurship. He is the author of the international bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free (Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor), which has sold over 90,000 copies sold and has been published in 7 foreign languages.

Ernie is also author of the unconventional Real Success Without a Real Job (The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations). His latest work is 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting.

Download the Creative Free E-book Editions of Ernie Zelinski's The Joy of Not Working and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free at:

Creative Free E-Books

101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting

Here's a book you can fall in love with just by reading the table of contents. It's entitled 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting by Ernie
Zelinski.

The table of contents listing those 101 things, plus a bonus of five more, is masterful, but so is each of the chapters expanding on each table of contents entry. If you are like most of us and have forgotten these lessons, I suspect you'll remember them after reading the book.

I flipped over the book because each lesson struck me as important and because reading the explanatory chapter convinced me in a persuasive and entertaining way that the lesson was important.

So first take a sample from the table of contents:

• One true friend is worth more than 10,000 superficial ones.
• Good deeds are seldom remembered; bad deeds are seldom forgotten.
• The surest way to failure is trying to please everyone.
• Your past is always going to be the way it was - so stop trying to change it.
• A walk or run in nature is the best medicine for many of your ailments.
• The shortcut to being truly fit and trim is long-term rigorous action.
• Compromising your integrity for money, power, or fame will come back to haunt you.
• If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, try watering your side.
• No matter how successful you become, the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.
• Be happy while you are alive because you are a long time dead.

I don't know about you, but I think those lessons of life are not only central to a good life but are also well stated. This Zelinski guy knows how to write prose that has the potential to become those old proverbs everyone repeats.

- From a Review by Herb Denenberg in the Philadelphia Bulletin

Purchase 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting directly at:
Amazon.com

#1 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?
- Milton Berle

#2 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.
-John Lancaster Spalding

#3 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
- William Goldsmith Brown

#4 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.
- Graycie Harmon

#5 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.
- Marion C. Garretty

#6 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine - she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights.
- Adabella Radici

#7 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
- Emily Dickinson

#8 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease.
- Lisa Alther

#9 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.
- Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

#10 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones.
- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

#1 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
- Tenneva Jordan

#2 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love.
- Mildred B. Vermont

#3 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
- Rajneesh

#4 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
- Abraham Lincoln

#5 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards
The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

#6 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
- Honoré de Balzac

#7 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

#8 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
- Spanish Proverb

#9 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

She [all mothers] never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along.
- Margaret Culkin Banning

#10 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.
- Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

Photo of Anna May Jarvis - Founder of Mother's Day

As much as I loved my mother Violet Zelinski, it will come as a surprise to some people that over the years I didn't buy her Mother's Day flowers, Mother's Day cards, or Mother's Day candy for Mother's Day. I did buy her dinner, however, and spent quality time with her every Mother's Day. Perhaps you should do likewise every Mother's Day.

Truth be known, you don't have to feel guilty about not buying Mother's Day gifts, Mother's Day flowers, or Mother's Day cards to help your mother celebrate Mother's Day. Not buying your mother cards, flowers, or candy to help her celebrate this special event is not about being stingy and saving yourself a few bucks, however. There is a much better reason. We have to go back to the origins of Mother's Day to place this in proper perspective.

Anna May Jarvis was just two weeks shy of forty-two, working for a life insurance company in Philadelphia, when her mother (Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis) died on May 9, 1905. It was the second Sunday of the month. The next year Anna May Jarvis made her life goal to see her mother and motherhood honored annually throughout the world. Jarvis felt children often neglected to appreciate their mother enough while she was still alive. She hoped Mother's Day would increase respect for parents and strengthen family bonds.

Two years after her mother's death, Anna Jarvis and her friends began a letter-writing campaign to gain the support of influential ministers, businessmen, and congressmen in declaring a national Mother's Day holiday. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation from the U.S. Congress to establish the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day forevermore.

Ironically, the commercialization of the day she had founded in honor of motherhood - today it is the biggest business day of the year for U.S. restaurants and flower shops - was not what Anna May Jarvis had envisioned. Jarvis wanted people to spend a lot of quality time with their mothers and let their mothers know how special they were.

Sadly, Jarvis, who never married and was never a mother herself, retired from her job at the insurance company to spend her remaining thirty-four years, and her entire fortune of over $100,000, campaigning against the commercialization of Mother's Day.

Whenever she could, Anna May Jarvis would speak out. She was known to crash florists' conventions to express her distaste for their "profiteering" from Mother's Day. Eventually too old to continue her campaign, she ended up deaf and blind - not to mention penniless - in a West Chester, Pennsylvania, sanitarium, where she died in November 1948 at the age of eighty-four.

"Why not give your mother Mother's Day flowers, Mother's Day cards, or Mother's Day candy?" you may ask. "Flowers," declared Jarvis, "are about half dead by the time they're delivered." As for candy, Jarvis advised, "Mother's Day has nothing to do with candy. Candy is junk. You give your mother a box of candy and then go home and eat most of it yourself."

"Then what's wrong with Mother's Day cards?" you may add. Jarvis felt that "a maudlin, insincere printed card or a ready-made telegram means nothing except that you're too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone else in the world."

Tell your mother the truth about Mother's Day and you won't have to spend money on Mother's Day flowers, Mother's Day candy, or Mother's Day cards to help her celebrate her special event of the year. Heck, you don't even have to buy her a copy of one of my books as a Mother's Day gift. You should, however, make her a special gourmet dinner or take her out to a fine restaurant. Don't cheap out!

Most important, you should spend a lot of quality time with your mother on Mother's Day. She will appreciate this immensely. What's more, if she were still living today, Anna May Jarvis would be so pleased that you celebrate the second Sunday of May with your mother in the essence and the true spirit of Mother's Day!

NOTE: The above article is adapted from the chapter called Flowers, Cards, and Candy Are Not the Essence of Mother's Day! in the book 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting (Vipbooks, 2007) by Ernie Zelinski. The book is dedicated to Ernie's mother Violet Zelinski (Waselyna Gordychuk) who passed away while Ernie was writing the latest edition of the book.

Following is a photo of Ernie's mother Violet Zelinski:

#1 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
- George Cooper

#2 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
- Honoré de Balzac

#3 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
- Washington Irving

#4 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
- Sharon Doubiago

#5 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
- George Herbert

#6 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

There's nothing like a mama-hug.
- Adabella Radici

#7 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
- Ann Taylor

#8 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.
- T. DeWitt Talmage

#9 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

#10 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Mother's Day

I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still
The deepest impressed on my heart.
- Eliza Cook

Also See The True Spirit of Mother's Day and Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive!

Download the Free E-book of 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting with 17 free chapters at Ernie Zelinski's Creative Free E-Books Website.

Purchase 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting (Vipbooks) at:

101 Really Important Things at Amazon.com

or:

101 Really Important Things at BarnesandNoble.com

Anna May Jarvis hated the commercialization of Mother's Day so much so that she felt sorry for ever starting the tradition of celebrating Mothers Day.

Things to Do for Your Mother on Mother's Day in the True Spirit of Mother's Day

• Visit your Mother on Mother's Day. Spend at least two or three hours with her - no excuses.
• Words matter (Like, a lot!). Let your mother know how much you love and appreciate her with your own words instead of gving her a stupid Mother's Day card.
• If you are going to present written words, instead of giving a Mother's Day card, write a long letter about how much your Mother means to you.
• Send a contribution in your Mother's name to a charity or cause that she supports.
• Instead of giving Mother's Day flowers, plant some some flowers or a tree in your mother's garden where she will be able to enjoy them for years and not only on Mother's Day.
• Cook a gourmet meal for your Mother on Mother's Day. Be sure to wash
  the dishes and clean up instead of having your mother do it.
• Remember that a homeless derelict with a wonderful mother is much richer than a millionaire with none, who cannot visit a mother on Mother's Day.

#1 of Top-Ten Quotes about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
- George Cooper

#2 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
- Honoré de Balzac

#3 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
- Washington Irving

#4 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
- Sharon Doubiago

#5 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
- George Herbert

#6 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

There's nothing like a mama-hug.
- Adabella Radici

#7 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
- Ann Taylor

#8 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.
- T. DeWitt Talmage

#9 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

#10 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still
The deepest impressed on my heart.
- Eliza Cook

• In the United States, there are about 82.5 million mothers. (source: US Census Bureau)
• According to Hallmark, about 96 percnet of American consumers take part in some way in Mother's Day.
• Mother's Day is one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions.
• According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.
• Retailers report that Mother's Day is the second highest gift-giving holiday in the United States (Christmas is the highest).
• Different countries celebrate Mother's Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins.
• In most countries, Mother's Day is a new concept copied from western civilization.
• Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis - who was most instrumental in the founding of Mother's Day - herself became a major opponent of Mother's Day Flowers, Mother's Day Candy, Mother's Day Cards, and Mother's Day Gifts.

Read on about Mother's Day:

#1 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, "where mother is."
- Keith L. Brooks

#2 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

#3 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends - but only one mother in the whole world.
- Kate Douglas Wiggin

#4 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

If I was damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o'mine.
- Rudyard Kipling

#5 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart - a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.
- Mark Twain

#6 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

No painter's brush, nor poet's pen
In justice to her fame
Has ever reached half high enough
To write a mother's name.
- Author Unknown

#7 Quote about Moms and Mothers for Your Mother's Day Cards

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones.
- Harry Truman

Here's a book you can fall in love with just by reading the table of contents. It's entitled 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting by Ernie J. Zelinski.

The table of contents listing those 101 things, plus a bonus of five more, is masterful, but so is each of the chapters expanding on each table of contents entry. If you are like most of us and have forgotten these lessons, I suspect you'll remember them after reading the book.

I flipped over the book because each lesson struck me as important and because reading the explanatory chapter convinced me in a persuasive and entertaining way that the lesson was important.

So first take a sample from the table of contents:

• One true friend is worth more than 10,000 superficial ones.
• Good deeds are seldom remembered; bad deeds are seldom forgotten.
• The surest way to failure is trying to please everyone.
• Your past is always going to be the way it was - so stop trying to change it.
• A walk or run in nature is the best medicine for many of your ailments.
• The shortcut to being truly fit and trim is long-term rigorous action.
• Compromising your integrity for money, power, or fame will come back to haunt you.
• If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, try watering your side.
• No matter how successful you become, the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.
• Be happy while you are alive because you are a long time dead.

I don't know about you, but I think those lessons of life are not only central to a good life but are also well stated. This Zelinski guy knows how to write prose that has the potential to become those old proverbs everyone repeats.

One of the lessons is "Do the difficult and uncomfortable if you would like an easy and comfortable life." That hit a homer for me, as during my years as a professor, I found the key mistake students make is believing that something is wrong if the educational process isn't entertaining and titillating. I found exactly the same problem with the many dozens of student interns I supervised while on television. I would try to explain that work is often a grind, that all of us sometimes have to endure what might seem unpleasant, but that if we want to get the job done, accomplish something worth accomplishing, and achieve our goals we can't always take the easy and comfortable path.

Zelinski says once you master the rule embodied in this lesson, "success will come relatively easy - much easier than it came before you mastered this rule."

So I'm about to give you the master key to success in life, and you won't even have to buy and read the book. Zelinski explains, "The Easy Rule of Life tells us that when we always do the easy and comfortable, life turns out to be difficult and uncomfortable. When we do the difficult and uncomfortable, however, life turns out to be easy and comfortable. Think about it carefully, and you will see how this rule applies to your life."

Here is the concrete illustration that Zelinski uses: "Taking the easy and comfortable way - sitting at home and watching a lot of no-brainer programs on television - will put you on a dead-end street. Long-term satisfaction can only be attained by undertaking the challenging activities that are at times difficult and frustrating. We must pay the price with time, effort, and frustration in completing these activities."

NOTE: You can download the Free E-Book with the Table of Contents, Preface, and 17 Chapters of 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting at:

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Mother's Day Articles by Real Success Author Ernie Zelinski Adapted from 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting

American Chronicle- Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive!

American Chronicle - Mothers Day Flowers, Cards, and Candy Are Not the Essence of Mothers Day

Best Syncication Mother's Day Reminder #1 - Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive!


Best Syndication Mother's Day Reminder #2 - Mother's Day Flowers, Mother's Day Cards, and Mother's Day Candy Are Not the Essence of Mother's Day

Articles Savvify - Magical Mothers Day Reminder

Articles Savvify - Magical Mothers Day Reminder #2

Ezines Mothers Day Reminder

Articles Base - Mother's Day Important Reminder - Thank Your Mother a Lot While She is Still Alive

Articles Base - Don't Buy Mother's Day Flowers, Mothers Day Cards, or Mothers Day Candy for Your Mother on Mother's Day!

Amazines - More Than a Mother's Day Reminder - Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive!

Visit one of Ernie's Websites:

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Ernie Zelinski's Author's Page on Morgan James Publishing

Book Tours by Ernie Zelinski

The Retirement Letters Café

Retirement Letters from Readers of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Retirement Jobs

Free Retirement Speeches

1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement

The Joy of Not Being Married

Best Places to Retire in the World

where to retire

The Best Retirement Gifts

Best Retirement Poems

Fools and Their Money

Magical Career Change - Escape the Organization for Good!