All that I am or Hope to be
I owe to My Mother

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman, whose strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in these contentions. I lost her thirty years ago [I was a child then] — nevertheless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age to age.

She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my better fortune. When young, I made her sad, and now I cannot console her. I know not even where her bones are: I was too poor then to buy earth to bury her!

And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman. Every instant, in my ideas and words [not to mention my features and gestures], I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood which gives me the sympathy I feel for bygone ages, and the tender remembrance of all those who are now no more.

What return then could I, who am myself advancing towards old age, make her for the many things I owe her? One, for which she would have thanked me — this protest in favour of women and mothers.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother." I'm not sure I want to say it quite like that, but my mother, Sonya Carson, was the earliest, strongest, and most impacting force in my life. It would be impossible to tell about my accomplishments without starting with my mother's influence.

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

There's no way to repay a mother's love, or lack of it.

Sometimes I’d give my mother a hundred bucks and she wouldn’t pay me back. She didn’t respect me like that. I’d say, “You owe me some money, Ma.” And she’d just say, “You owe me your life, boy. I’m not paying you back.

"...I owed her a debt of gratitude. More than gratitude, much more.
I could finally see what had always been there. She had been more than an attendant, more than a friend, more than a sister. She had been a mother to me. She had worried, sought to protect me from danger, guided me toward the best. She had looked out for my future, assessed the worthiness of everyone to be in my life. And in that way, she had taken me as her purpose in life, the one who gave her meaning. I had a constant love all along. And in recognizing that, I felt moved to tears.
"How could you step out of my life?" I told her. "if you do don't join me, I will be lost. No one would worry about me as much as you. No one knows me better, knows my past and what this new life means. I should have told you a long time ago." I became teary-eyed. She kept her lips sealed, but her jaw was trembling. "You are the only loyal person in my life, the only one I can trust."
Tears fell from her eyes. "Now you know. I was always the only one."
"We love each other," I said with a light laugh. "In spite of all the trouble I've given you, you stayed with me. So it must be that you loved me like a mother.

I speak to you today with feelings of profound sorrow. Throughout her life, Her Majesty The Queen — my beloved mother — was an inspiration and example to me and to all my family, and we owe her the most heartfelt debt any family can owe to their mother; for her love, affection, guidance, understanding and example. Queen Elizabeth was a life well lived; a promise with destiny kept and she is mourned most deeply in her passing. That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today.

My mother and I have this really strangely close relationship. No other relationship can come close to it. It's frightening. Even when I'm in a relationship with a man, I compare it to my relationship with my mother. She is a friend, but she is still a mother, and everything a mother needs to be, she is. She is really observing and caring and doesn't want anything but giving because it's her joy. Even when I can't bear anybody, not even myself, she 's like the sun coming up to me. She dedicated all her life to me. Sometimes I feel that she gave her life to me and now it's my job to maybe take her somewhere. But what is it she doesn't know? She knows things I couldn't begin to know. Yet she is so fresh with ideas which I already take for granted. She sometimes wakes me up and says, 'Don't you see?' and she makes me see and feel things again. Nobody, not my father, not anybody, has done that for me, except movies.

Love is a personal debt.

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world.

I was deeply in love with my mother. She was very beautiful and in many ways unattainable. She changed between being very cold and very warm, and she would reject us children on and off. You never quite knew what she would do. But I was very certain of one thing: I loved her passionately. That’s one of my earliest childhood memories. That I had such strong ties to my mother.