Mother's Pride

These thoughts have been going around in my head for years, since my twins were born actually. It was early on after their birth (when the hormones were probably still raging) and I was driving back from the grocery store listening to George Michael's 'Listen Without Prejudice'. It's a great album but one track at the time particularly affected me.

Although I had listened to it many times before and have since, each time I hear it now I realise once again how having children changes your life in more ways than you can ever imagine possible.

On that particular day, the words of the song 'Mother's Pride' moved me deeply. It's about women saying goodbye to the men they love, be it husbands, sons or lovers and waving them off to war.

Suddenly I understood something I had never before considered.

Children have a capacity to hurt you in way you would never have thought of. Not by being mean, or rude, or naughty, but by getting hurt, or sick, wounded or killed. By going off to fight a war and not come home.

I cannot imagine how it must feel to lose a child, no parent ever wants to find that out for themselves. I know war is almost a fact of life, and this is not an anti-war message, but it's a message about the effect of war on the people left behind - I think.

I cried driving home that day (again, I blame it on the hormones) but I have never forgotten it and while this isn't meant to be a morbid post, it IS meant to show that things that are familiar, that are everyday can change when you have children.

I recently re-discovered 'Listen Without Prejudice' and it brought back all those thoughts from almost 6 years ago and I decided I had to write them down. The words of the song are here, I hope George won't mind if I get them a little wrong, this is from memory!

Mother's Pride

Oh she knows, she takes his hand

And prays the child will understand

At the door, they watch the men go by

In the clothes that Daddy wore

Mother's pride

Baby boy

His father's eyes

He's a soldier waiting for a war

Time will come

He'll hold a gun

His father's son.

As he grows, he hears the band

Takes the step from boy to man

At the shore, she waves her son goodbye

Like the man she did before

Mother's pride

Just a boy

His country's eyes

He's a soldier waving at the shore

And in her heart, time has come

To lose a son.

And all the husband, all the sons, all the lovers gone

It makes no difference

No difference in the end

Still hear the women say "Your daddy died a hero"

In the name of God and man

Mother's pride

Crazy boy

His lifeless eyes

He's a soldier now for evermore

He'll hold a gun

'Til kingdom come.