Politics vs. love -- which matters most?

The dearest person I have ever known and can only hope to be somewhat like as I grow older and wiser came under fire today for nothing more than forwarding a link to a video that features a U.S. congressman spouting his opinion of the now-adopted healthcare overhaul.

What you may think of that legislation, the Congress or our president is irrelevant for purposes of what I'm about to say, so set aside whatever feelings you have with regard to those matters.

I want to address the sacrifice of relationships on the altar of pride. It's a biggie.

My mother carried me for nine months, gave birth, gave me a childhood worth remembering, a young adulthood worth re-living for the lessons I learned, and an adult adulthood in which I continue to learn something new virtually every day. She gave me a sense of worth, the rarest kind of love (unconditional), and taught me to value the things of God over the things of this world. She read to me, sang to me, washed my clothes, my body, my dog, and, later, my babies. She cleaned up my vomit, pee, poop, and spilled food, bandaged my wounds, and didn't kill me for cutting my own hair with pinking shears at the tender age of three. She never spanked me, even when I surely deserved it. She indulged my love of animals, donated money to the animal shelters at which I worked or volunteered, served as cookie mom when I was a Brownie, and worked her butt off as a member of our local elementary school's PTA. Oh, and she volunteered to give art lectures to class after class of little kids, most of whom had likely never set foot in an art museum. And who can forget the time I wrecked my fairly new car in college and the first question Mom asked me was, "Are you okay?" See, the car didn't matter. The child did.

I could go on and on and, yes, on some more but I won't. My point is that my mother has spent her entire life -- at least the last 44 years of it -- giving and doing for others to the point that I started referring to her as my "sainted mum," much to her embarrassment.

That's why it pained me so today to read unkind remarks directed at her simply because she forwarded a video link to some who didn't agree with the position of the speaker in the video.

It's a classic case of shooting the messenger.

The saddest part is that the snarky correspondents -- one a relative and the other a long-time friend -- have both benefited tremendously from their relationship with my mother. She's taken nothing from them, eroded their lives not one jot or tittle, and yet they would rather defend their political ideologies than preserve their friendships.

Stunning, to say the least.

Screw the Congress. Screw the president. Screw political ideology of every stripe and size. None of those people or things, not one of them, will rush to your side in a crisis. They don't know you, they sure don't care about you, and they have no vested interest in your life or your death.

Trust me when I say you want my mom (or someone damn near like her) standing in the gap on your behalf. It's people like her who inspire the stuff of poetry, song, religious texts and Hallmark cards. It's people like her who keep people like me from really freaking out when someone attacks my mother.

Dear readers, the next time you receive an email with which you do not agree I hope you'll take my mother's sage advice: HIT THE DELETE KEY AND MOVE ON.

I do it all the time and, as far as I know, all my key relationships are still intact.

At the end of the day or at the end of our lives, isn't that really what matters most?