Figure 1 – Sylvia Wolf c 1936. Original by Littman Galleries, Bronx, NY. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Today is Mother’s Day 2016, and I have been enjoying all of the old photographs that people are posting on social media. A lot of people nowadays object to the commercialism of these “artificial greeting card holidays,” but I think that the images that people are posting today is much more to the point and much more of what social media should be. There is value in stopping and thinking about the people who have shaped our lives – and really no one shapes your life like your mother.  In a narcissistic age it is worth realizing that the only person who cares more about you than you yourself is your mother. And for those of us whose mothers are gone there is the strange reality on some days when you have a desire to call your mother on the telephone and you suddenly realize that you cannot. It does not leave you with an empty feeling but rather one of bittersweet recognition that the connectivity of the generations exceeds and eclipses the shallow connections of the internet.