That Mother’s Day falls during our Heritage Month celebrations is rather fitting since this is a time to reflect on the power of family values and the role they have played during the most severe storms of life in keeping good sound values as the foundation for building strong solid citizens who can pass the torch to others along the way.

Without taking anything away from those fathers who made a significant contribution in keeping family values alive during tough times, few would dispute that mothers endowed with that special gift of commitment and dedication were pillars of strength in raising children — most significantly when the task was left purely on their shoulders.

Our magnificent history is packed with stories, many of which will never be told, about brave mothers who never shifted from values they knew were essential in meeting the challenges of life.

Bermuda owes a lot to those mothers of the past, some never having their name in lights. But through their guidance, they left others with a light of confidence to approach life knowing that truth, decency and good values would enable them to meet any challenge without fear.

Even our dark chapter of social injustice never prevented mothers from teaching good values, and this occurred in black and white families. Discipline was the order of the day back then, and that quality had no boundaries.

Bermuda is unique in that we have a rather small population and limited space, and this meant during the dark period of segregation based on race that there were blacks and whites living in proximity.

Despite the uneasy situation, many established good relationships, which perhaps was the foundation for paving the way to eliminate segregation as a way of life on our beautiful island.

It takes a mother with great faith to resist teaching her children to hate or seek revenge for social injustices, knowing that two wrongs have never made a right.

In our current world of multitudes of distractions with changing lifestyles, the vital importance of traditional values that so many of our mothers took pride in preserving should not be abandoned for the sake of marching to the drum beat of popular trends.

This year, not only should we honour and celebrate the legacy our mothers handed down to us, but we should also use the opportunity to make use of events that will bring together people from all walks of life, regardless of race or religion. Only then can we begin a new chapter of growth that hopefully will rekindle the old Bermuda spirit of working things out together.

Mothers today are faced with many challenges that were not present decades ago.

With the atmosphere fully charged with streams of cyberspace activity, both good and bad, a young mind could be lost in a maze of confusion without close guidance.

Community groups, churches and political leaders may be helpful, but there is no replacement for the power of a loving family in getting a young mind pointed in the right direction. Mothers throughout the world have been known to give their all to protect and raise children, even in dire situations where military conflict has created devastation with little food or shelter and unbearable suffering.

We here in Bermuda have problems and that is a part of life everywhere. However, with the approaching Mother’s Day celebrations, we need to pause and reflect on values that brought us this far. Mothers, along with dedicated fathers, helped to get us here. We must work harder to prepare our young men and women to realise the importance of keeping that light of positive values burning in order for future generations to have a bright guidepost for building a better Bermuda.