The Amazing Power of
Love
There once were two mothers.
Each had been treated poorly by the Germans, and each had the chance to
show her son how she was going to react, and how she wanted him to also. The first mother was Polish and had a son
named Marek. He was angry with the Nazis
in their rough treatment of her, pushing her down and tearing off her Star of
David necklace, and he wanted to go administer some revenge. “No, my Son,” she urged, “Whatever happens,
you must Love. Promise me you will Love.”
“OK,” he relents, and hugs her tight.
The second mother was American and her son was called
Chauncey. He was with her when she was
notified that her soldier husband had been killed by the Germans. “Son, make this right,” Chauncey’s mother
urged. So Chauncey, bearing his father’s
knife in his hand, agreed with all his heart, that he would get revenge!
Later, both young men found themselves in the heart of Nazi
Germany in a Concentration camp.
Chauncey had grown up to be a soldier.
He was there with the US armed forces to liberate the camp and relocate
the people. He was filled with horror to
see the atrocities and death in the camp.
His anger against those filthy Germans flared, so Chauncey got a group
together to go to a nearby farmhouse to take out the anger on these Krauts, to
seek revenge by plundering and molesting them!
For this crime, he was later put in prison, and lost his fiancé in the
process. Hatred had ruined his life.
Marek had grown to be an amazing linguist and had a nice
family of his own. Then one fateful day,
the Nazis stormed his home, dragged his wife and children out, and shot them
before Marek’s eyes. Begging to die too,
he was nonetheless kept alive for his ability with languages. At that point, Marek had to make a decision,
to hate or to love. Keeping his promise
to his mother, he chose to love everyone he met. ‘I had to decide right then,’ he later told the
liberating soldiers, ‘whether to let myself hate the soldiers who had done
this...Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to me in the
world. I decided then that I would spend
the rest of my life—whether it was a few days or many years—loving every person
I came in contact with.’”
Love was the only difference between him and all the other
inmates who were skin and bones, sick and apathetic, hardly alive. “For six years he had lived on the same
starvation diet, slept in the same airless and disease-ridden barracks as
everyone else, but without the least physical or mental deterioration.” Wild
Bill had kept his health, his intellectual abilities, and his empathy for
others—all because he decided to love.
And in the end, his wife was found in a different camp, recovered from
her shots and elated to find again her love.
(This story “The Hate Hypothesis” is a play by Kyle Ellingson that is
based on the true story [about Wild Bill] found in Return from Tomorrow, by George Ritchie page 114-116, quoted
above.)
What a difference the two mothers in this story made. What a difference each mother makes, on
generations to come. The little thoughts
and attitudes that she daily feeds her child become a part of that child and
determine much of the shape of a lifetime ahead.
To sum it up, she urges us: "Spending time with our
children is the most important thing Mothers can do in time or eternity."
May we celebrate mothers and mothering! May we each thank our mothers for the good
they instilled in us, and carry it forward.
We can be an integral part of the amazing power of love.
Labels: Mothers--influence, Story--A Tale of Two Mothers
