This week's Pep Talk: "Make Mom Smile"

I have always marveled at life growing inside a woman. The expanding belly, the late-stage waddle, the pain, then boom! – a child is born. I can only imagine what it must be like. April 13, 1958, December 23, 1989 and January 19, 1997. The months, days and years when I was present to witness mom, former wife #1 and former wife #2 give birth to your humble correspondent, a son and daughter respectively. Thank you, to each, for giving me life and lives I would sacrifice mine for.

America began officially celebrating Mother’s Day about a century ago. However, the call to recognize women began much earlier. Many credit Julie Ward Howe, writer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, with planting the seeds. In 1870, dismayed by the carnage of our country’s Civil War, the New York City native wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. She was a trumpeter sounding a clear call for women to realize their potential to shape society at the political level.

A woman taking charge when somebody needs to step up and say, “What the heck is going on here?” Moms, you’re really good at that, bless you! It makes me think of Thelissa Zollinger. The mother of six was rocked to the core in 2004 when husband Gary was diagnosed, despite never smoking, with stage-four lung cancer. The energy executive courageously battled for life, enduring standard treatments and an experimental double-lung transplant procedure. It was a brave but, tragically, futile fight that ended in 2007.

Half a dozen beautiful children no longer had the physical presence of their father. It inspired a mother to tap into unimagined skills, talents and strengths to raise money for research to develop a reliable, early detection test for lung cancer. Luckily, we have early detection tests for breast, colon and prostate cancers, but not lung. This, despite, at least in Colorado, many more people die annually from lung cancer than the others.

Each year Thelissa, in conjunction with the AMC Cancer Fund, hosts The Gift of Life and Breath, http://www.thegiftoflifeandbreath.com. It’s a commemorative moment happening again this year May 21st. We are going to run, walk and raise money. Thelissa is determined not to allow Gary’s death to be in vain. “We’re making progress,” the vibrant grandmother of seven announced recently. “Last year’s event raised enough money to fund a year of lab research, we’re getting closer!” From across the conference room table the darling woman’s blazing eyes permeated my soul as she proclaimed, “I have hope.”

Hope is a good thing to possess, right? Defined as “expectation or desire for certain events to happen”, hope, like time in a mother’s womb, fuels our existence. As we celebrate those who gave us life, or nurtured it along the way, perhaps the greatest gift is not flowers, chocolate, jewelry or gift certificates. Perhaps the greatest gift we could offer is, despite the challenges present, a promise: we’ll never lose expectation or desire to live in ways that honor, nurture and add value to self, others and communities we serve.

I would suspect that would make most moms smile on their special day.