Although the Mother’s Day Project began a little over a year ago, I think of Mother’s Day as an anniversary marker for the journey that began in the spring of 2007.
It was a simple idea. We would, all of us, join together to honor the mothers, daughters, wives and lovers - the female members of the Coalition forces who had died in service to their country while fighting in Iraq. We would stitch their names onto swatches of muslin, and I would complete the process by fashioning a simple tote bag from the stitched names to circulate amongst ourselves as a reminder of the ongoing conflict and the many thousands of dead men, women and children whose names are either unknown or too numerous to fit onto a portable memorial like a tote.
But, something happened along the way.
By Frances Langum
— May 10, 2008