“Mom,” Mindy, and Mother’s Day

According to the National Geographic website, Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) is most often credited with her role in the establishment of Mother’s Day as a national holiday.  The first Mother's Day was celebrated in a church service on this day, May 10, in 1908 following Anna's request to honor her mother.  On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress officially declared the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

This year, Mother’s Day once again falls on May 10.  And, the observance is also very special in our family because we will celebrate both the motherhood of my wife, Alvadell (“Abby”) Moser Silvius, while at the same time remembering that she labored to give birth to our daughter, Melinda (“Mindy”) Maetta, on May 10, 45 years ago.  This means that today we can celebrate Alvadell as mother, and Mindy as her blessed "letter" written in her blood and sweat, and with much love from the pen held faithfully in her kind grasp for the past 45 years.  And so today, both Alvadell and I will celebrate our daughter Mindy’s birthday in the presence of her husband Steve and children as living evidence of her motherhood.

Although my blog’s have often addressed issues that are controversial, there is no controversy in today’s entry.  (This also means today’s blog can be much shorter.  Yea!)  All of us can celebrate Mother’s Day as a reminder of our mother’s who gave us life.  Some readers may not know their biological mother but can pause to thank the mother who chose to love, adopt, and nurture them.  Others may not have had the privilege to bear one or more children but who are mothers nonetheless because of their major role as a loving, tender “mother” to children—maybe many children.

Regardless of the person we remember today as “our mother,” we ought to remember that that person, and for me, Esther Silvius, was the living being through whom God gave us physical life.  In view of this fact, we can ask with the Apostle Paul as recorded in 1 Corinthians 4: 7, What do you have that you did not receive?  Yet because of God’s wonderful grace through the agency of our mothers, we were launched into the land of the living with opportunity to take what was not our own and to use it to live godly lives as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms (1 Peter 4: 10).

And so, today I can celebrate both my wife, the mother of our children, Bradley and Melinda, and the birth of Melinda.  I conclude with words written some 30 years ago by Mindy on behalf of her mother, entitled “In the Picture.”

Happy Birthday, Mindy!  And, Happy Mother’s Day to both Alvadell and daughter, Mindy.

A Birthday and Memorial Day Tribute

Grave Marker, Dundee Cemetery, Dundee, Ohio

Today, my uncle, Glen Silvius, would have been 104 years old.  My tribute to him is appropriate because this beloved uncle had such a large part in my own development as a young man.  But also, I want to honor him at this time when Memorial Day is approaching because he served honorably in World War II as a member of "the greatest generation."

Discharged in 1945, Corporal Glen Silvius, U.S. Army, had served above and beyond that which was required of him.  To my recollection, he never mentioned that he was awarded a Purple Heart.  Uncle Glen, or “Shorty” as he was known in our family, participated in the Normandy Invasion and the subsequent liberation of France and Germany from Nazi domination.  He seldom spoke of what must have been some horrendous experiences in World War II, but his letters from the battle front which I was able to read after his death, in 1997, revealed much about this chapter of his life.

Glen Silvius, U.S. Army

Just two weeks after the Normandy landing on June 6, Uncle Glen wrote the following letter to his parents, Jesse and Edna Silvius, of Dundee, Ohio from “Somewhere in France.”  I publish it here with posthumous thanks to my uncle who understood and accepted the saving grace of God and won his greatest victory, the victory “over sin and self,” by faith in the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For my earlier tribute to Glen Silvius, see “Memorial Day Tribute to a Rich Uncle,” Oikonomia, May 27, 2013.