Proclamation 5801 --
Mother's Day, 1988
By
the President of the
A
Proclamation
Maternal
love is the first tangible bond any human being knows. It is a tie at once
physical, emotional, psychological, and mystical. With all of the words that
have been written about motherhood, all of the poems of tribute and gratitude
that have been penned through the ages, all of the portraits of a mother and child
that have been painted down the centuries, none has come close to expressing in
full the thankfulness and joy owing to mothers.
The
mark of motherhood, as the story of Solomon and the disputed infant in the
first Book of Kings shows, is a devotion to the well-being of the child so
total that it overlooks itself and its own preferences and needs. It is a love
that risks all, bears all, braves all. As it heals and
strengthens and inspires in its objects an understanding of self-sacrifice and
devotion, it is the parent of many another love as
well.
The
arms of a mother are the newborn's first cradle and the injured child's first
refuge. The hands of a mother are the hands of care for the child who is near
and of prayer for the one who is far away. The eyes of a mother are the eyes of
fond surprise at baby's first step, the eyes of unspoken worry at the young
adult's first voyage from home, the eyes of gladness at every call or visit
that says she is honored and remembered. The heart of a mother is a heart that
is always full.
Generation
after generation has measured love by the work and wonder of motherhood. For
these gifts, ever ancient and ever new, we cannot pause too often to give
thanks to mothers. As inadequate as our homage may be and as short as a single
day is to express it -- ``What possible comparison was
there,'' a great saint wrote of his mother, ``between the honor I showed her
and the service she had rendered me?'' -- Mother's Day affords us an
opportunity to meet one of life's happiest duties.
In
recognition of the contributions of mothers to their families and to our
Nation, the Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 8, 1914 (38 Stat.
770), has designated the second Sunday in May each year as Mother's Day and
requested the President to call for its appropriate observance.
Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the
In
Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of April, in
the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the
Ronald
Reagan
[Filed with the Office
of the Federal Register,