Listen to your mother

Maybe all you really needed to know you learned in kindergarten, but not us.

With a deep bow to author Robert Fulghum, we learned it all before kindergarten. We learned from Mother.

Learning and actually doing, however, are sometimes very different things.

Mother taught us to share, to play fair and not to hit anybody. Yet we have at times been miserly, cheated and struck.

Mother taught us to put things back where we found them, to clean up our own messes and to not take things that aren't ours. But despite that sage instruction, we've left stuff where it didn't belong, including our own messes, and we have filched others' property.

Mother clearly said we should say we're sorry when we hurt somebody, but we haven't always done that. In fact, there have been times we gloated or even laughed.

Mother said warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, and by God, we've never strayed on that one.

But the single most important thing Mother ever told us, as Mr. Fulghum later stated: "When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together."

We have gone out into the world and we have watched out for traffic, but we haven't always held hands and we've rarely stuck together. Sorry, Mom. We never meant to let you down.

But if there's a silver lining - and with Mother, there is always a silver lining - it's that she taught us something else, something that's more important than any of these other things; maybe more important than all of them. Mother taught us that forgiveness is the most powerful thing on Earth, a panacea that will cure the worst ills society can unleash.

So if your mother is anything like ours, follow her advice and forgive. Forgive others. Forgive yourself. Because today of all days, what Mother says, goes.