Sacrifice

I read this story the other day and thought I would share it tonight. 

Before you were conceived I wanted you
Before you were born I loved you
Before you were here an hour I would die for you
This is the miracle of love.

-- Maureen Hawkins

"Mother is always there when you need her. She helps, protects, listens, advises and nurtures physically and morally. She makes sure that her family is loved 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. At least that's how I remember my mother, for the few precious years I was blessed to have her. But no words can describe the sacrifice she made out of love for me, her young son.

I was 19 years old, and I was being taken to a concentration camp with a large group of other Jews. It was clear that we were destined to die. Suddenly my mother stepped in and traded places with me. And although it was more than 50 years ago, I will never forget her last words to me and her good-bye look.

"I have lived long enough. You have to survive because you are so young," she said.

Most kids are born only once. I was given birth twice - by the same mother."  ~ Joseph C. Rosenbaum

From Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

Copyright 1998 Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne, Marci Shimoff

"Only a life lived for others is worth living" ~ Albert Einstein