(I had a moment of clarity last year and realized how my mom in her own subtle way had profoundly influenced my life. The column below was the result of that moment and I am happy to share it again this year.)

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester at Cornell. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about low grades and no attendance.

Me, Max, Mom and Zack. Mid ‘90s.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob

Delphiniums, oil on canvas, 18×24

By Carrie Jacobson

A prayer for all the mothers:

May love be the road you walk, with your children and with your own mother. It might not be an easy road, or a straight one. It might not be paved smooth and even. But it’s the best road, the surest road, the one that passes through the heart.

May you have the courage to hold fast to your convictions and your ethics, and to teach your children the hard lessons, the ones that will help them make their own best choices.

May you find the energy to seek your own inspiration, your own truths, your own beliefs and the strength to follow them.

May you have the joy of laughter shared, the pleasure of rich solitude, the comfort of family and friends when times are tough.

And may hope and faith be yours, today and every day.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

All the flowers in corporate chains and box stores are imported. The cheap abundance of imported flowers not only has an impact on mom and pop florists as well as supermarkets, but also makes it very hard for American growers to compete. One California grower complained: “We can’t allow other countries to come in and impact our bottom line in the name of free trade. How can you compare foreign labor costs of $3 an hour with California’s labor costs of $12 an hour?”

There’s a slim chance the flowers bought for Mom were grown domestically. California was the leading provider of cut flowers in 2005, accounting for 73 percent of domestic flower production.

“We can’t compete with imports,” another California nursery owner said. “Those flowers are loaded with pesticides that California growers can’t even think about using.” A survey on Colombian flower plantations found that workers were exposed to 127 different pesticides. One-fifth of the chemicals used in flower production in South America are restricted or banned in the United States and Europe, such as DDT. Since there are very few environmental laws in South America, these chemicals wind up in drinking water, causing species to decline as well as damaging human health.

Workers are often denied proper protection and become sick after applying herbicides, fungicides and pesticides. Two-thirds of Colombian flower laborers (mostly women) suffer from impaired vision, respiratory and neurological problems, disproportionately high still-birth rates, and babies born with congenital malformations. When workers try to organize unions to defend their interests, they are often fired, ridiculed or harassed.

In response to the horrendous social and environmental costs of cut flowers, green entrepreneurs like Gerald Prolman have stepped up to the plate. His company, Organic Bouquet, in Marin County, Calif., is one of the concerns trying to establish a niche market for organic flowers in the U.S. Another green entrepreneur, Josh Dautoff, in Watsonville, Calif., converted his parents’ chemically reliant fields and greenhouses to organic.

“It’s ironic that people will pay more money for organic food for their dinner plate because they are afraid of chemicals,” he said. “But then they will buy conventionally grown flowers that are covered in chemicals for the centerpiece of their dinner table. Those chemicals will catch up with people; maybe not through their mouths, but through the water and air.”

Organic florist Lynn Mehl or Good Old Days Florist in New Windsor had an epiphany recently when she discovered the thorny underside of the floral industry. “I did a little research on my (previous) products,” Mehl said, “and found that roses alone, according to recent studies, can contain up to 50 times the amount of pesticides that are legally allowed on our food. I shop organic, I support fair wages, I cannot consciously continue with a business practice that is against all that I have supported for years.”

“And would you believe,” adds Mehl, “I am the only professional florist buying these flowers on the East Coast for resale?”

Want to celebrate both Mom and Mother Earth this year?

–Ask your local florist for organic flowers.

–Buy flowers from a local farm or grower directly.

–Give Mom a live plant from a local store or grower.

–Or give her an edible bouquet of salad greens and flowers from a local farm.

–Buy her a flat of flowers and plant them in flower beds for her.

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery. Shawn@zestoforange.com