By Patty Leon
Coastal Courier (Hinesville, GA) Staff Writer
pleon@coastalcourier.com

Andrew Cole works with his mom, Jennifer Cole, at their family owned café, Over Coffee, in downtown Hinesville.
Cole and his wife, Tamika, recently moved to Hinesville from Atlanta with their two children and he  is grateful for having a mother who has always been there for him and his brother.
“She is very caring and has always been there for me and my brother even now that we are grown ups,” Cole said. “This year is particularly special because May 13 is also her birthday. Hopefully my brother and I can do something special for her.”
Cole and his wife recently found their own place after staying with his mother since moving from Atlanta.
“It got a little crazy for a while working and living together, but she never complained,” Cole said. “My wife and my mom are both very special. “They both put up with me, and that says a lot.”
Lillian McKnight is a mom with a special mission this Mother’s day.
In the tradition of celebrating family, she is busy organizing her son Tommy’s first communion.
“All my family and friends are coming together to celebrate,” McKnight said. McKnight’s mother, Arline Thomas, will be among those celebrating this family occasion.
“My mother gets me, she deals with me, and she helps me more than she knows. If it were not for her, I would not be able to get through things,” she said. “No matter what I do she is there.”
McKnight’s son, Tommy, 8, said his mom is special because “she loves me.”
Leslie Miller treasures her mother Linda Heavens for many reasons.
“She helps me with the kids, she helped me when my husband was deployed.
She has always been there,” Miller said.
She and her mother share a special bond.
“For about 10 years it was just me and my mom, so we have a close relationship,” she said.
Miller’s eldest son, Hunter, 9, said his mother is “special because she is my mom. She cooks dinner for me and cares for me.”
For many mothers, being special is good but being treated special is much better.
Toni Wrighton and Beth Mentes of Hinesville both share the same vision of the ultimate Mothers Day gift.
“If I don’t have to cook, do laundry, wash dishes, or clean the house, that is a dream Mothers Day, Mentes said.
“Sunday morning I will go to church with my children and after that, if my husband cooks me an early dinner and I don’t have to lift a finger, that is a special Mothers Day, “ Wrighton said.

History of Mothers Day 

The second Sunday in May is set aside as a special day to pay tribute to mothers. The traditional practice of honoring motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians, and different versions of “Mother’s Day” are celebrated worldwide.
In the United States, the 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe, to protest the deaths and carnage of the Civil War, was the beginning of what we know as Mothers Day. Her Proclamation called for all mothers to come together and celebrate peace and motherhood. The celebration of Mothers Day slowly dwindled until Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate an adaptation of Howe’s holiday in an effort to re-unite families that had been divided between the Union and the Confederates during the Civil War.
In the years after Jarvis died, her daughter, Anna M. Jarvis, campaigned for the creation of an official day for honoring mothers, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed a national declaration naming the second Sunday in May as Mothers Day.
As the holiday flourished in the United States, the gift of choice became flowers. Ironically, Jarvis reportedly thought the commercialization of Mothers Day was wrong and she did everything possible to protest the sale of flowers, or the creation of a Mothers Day stamp back in the 1930’s.
Jarvis died in 1948, blind, poor and childless never knowing the Florists Exchange had been anonymously paying for her care.
Today, the tradition of celebrating Mothers Day continues. Moms are generally treated to gifts, flowers, candy, dinner or all of the above.