A MOTHER’S LOVE

By the year’s end I found myself running out of books to read anymore. So I prayed, “Father, I hope I could find me some as You very well know I abhor getting bored.” True to His promise (ask and it shall be given), as I arrived home from the first Sunday, of the following year, evening mass at our Cathedral, I was gladly surprised a bundle of books was waiting for me delivered, according to my son, by an unknown young man. As I excitedly opened the gift, I found a short but very touching letter from my good friend some years back, I’ve lost touch with for a good number of years already.

The following story I decided to reprint not only because I am an avid fan of Carl Jung but more because I strongly feel that there could be no greater love than that of a mother’s. I culled this from the book, SMALL MIRACLES OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP – Remarkable Coincidences of Warmth and Devotion.

In one of his books, the eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung relates the following story:

During the Second World War, American soldiers were stationed on one of the Pacific Islands preparing for an offensive attack against Japan.

Late one night an American soldier named Johnny was resting inside his tent, when, inexplicably, he heard his mother’s familiar and beloved voice calling him urgently: “Johnny! Johnny!”

She sounded frantic.

Johnny chuckled to himself. His own mother was actually many thousands of miles away in the United States, and obviously a bored soldier was mischievously playing a trick on him by imitating his mother’s voice. But who that soldier was and how he had gotten his mother’s voice down so pat, he didn’t know. No one on the base had ever met his mother before; how could someone mimic her voice so convincingly?

Curious and perplexed, Johnny rose from his cot and went out into the dark night to find the man who had pulled the prank.

Johnny expected to find the prankster somewhere nearby, laughing uproariously, but to his amazement, there was no one standing around in the immediate vicinity or the surrounding area.

Johnny was a tenacious sort who didn’t easily give up. He also didn’t like being duped. So he wandered far away from his tent, determined to track down the perpetrator of the practical joke. But everyone on the base seemed to be sleeping soundly, and no one was up and about.

After his investigations proved fruitless, Johnny finally gave up the hunt and returned to his tent. But where the tent had stood only minutes before, there now loomed a giant, smoking crater instead.

During Johnny’s absence, Japanese mortar shells had landed directly onto the spot where the tent had been situated. All the soldiers inside the tent had been killed instantly. Johnny’s life had been saved by the mysterious prankster.

Several months later, Johnny returned to the safe harbor of the United States and the warm embrace of his mother’s arms. As he recounted to his mother the dramatic tale of his narrow escape, she shared with him a story of her own.

On that fateful night in the Pacific when Johnny had heard his mother’s voice calling him, his mother, asleep in Oklahoma at the exact same time, had had a powerful dream. In the dream, her son’s tent was being bombarded by mortar shells. The dream seemed so real she screamed out in her sleep: “Johnny! Johnny!” Her shrieks did not abate until her husband roused her from the nightmare in which she was entrapped.

Her husband tried to calm her – repeating over and over again, “it’s a dream, only a dream.” – and her screaming finally stopped.

Mysteriously, the voice of the mother had traveled directly to the ears of her son, thousands of miles away, and saved his life.

“Far louder than anything we can measure are the sound waves transmitted by a mother’s love.”

My love to every mother, and fathers who are more mothers, out there! Some time again, dearest friends. God bless…!