At GrandPad we love our mothers. So much so, in fact, that we took some time to interview some of the best moms around to continue our popular Mother’s Day series. Mother’s Day is a special holiday because we have the opportunity to celebrate our foundation, our bedrock: our moms, who shaped us into the people we became.
When mothers start talking about their children, you know you’re in for a treat. The stories start to flow, and you can see years of memories and smiles and joy flash across their face as they relive every hilarious detail of your first day in preschool or your first trip to the beach. For Mother’s Day, we’ve turned the focus around so we can learn more about our mothers, and the mothers that raised them. For this edition of our Mother’s Day series, we interviewed Alice Fontana, a devoted mom and equally devoted GrandPad user. Alice’s love for her children knows no bounds, and no boundaries – as we’ll find out, you don’t need to be Alice’s blood to be Alice’s child.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: when we ask Alice for her most cherished memories as a mother, Alice starts, very appropriately, at the beginning. Reliving the moment she held her first child in her arms right after giving birth, Alice lights up. She says that, after the toil of childbirth, seeing your own child in your arms “takes away all your pain.” Like many of the mothers we interviewed, Alice quickly veers away from these big, life-defining moments to focus on the daily aspects of being a mother. She asserts “you can find beauty and faith in the small moments.” For Alice, having faith is a natural part of her motherhood experience. She says that being a mother is equal parts “serving my children and serving the Lord.” Fate always kept Mother’s Day in the forefront of Alice’s mind: the birth of her first son, detailed above, occurred right after Mother’s Day. Having her initiation into motherhood coincide with the calendar holiday meant a lot to Alice, who remembers “it was incredible to become a mother so close to Mother’s Day.” According to Alice, the Lord molded her to be a mother to many, and the alignment of Mother’s Day with the birth of her first child was merely a sign of things to come.
Perhaps Alice’s knack for motherhood came from her caring and positive Mom. As Alice recalls, her mother “was always positive and joyful. She would sing, even through her trials and tribulations.” Alice’s mother raised Alice and Alice’s 6 siblings, in addition to 2 of her grandchildren. Alice was always impressed by how much love and wisdom her mother was able to share with each of her children. Her mother never seemed to run out of empathy and compassion. Alice, in turn, more than rose to the challenge. Alongside her husband, who she brags did a “great job” of being a dedicated father and partner, Alice raised four biological children, two adopted children, and many foster children through the years. She emphasizes that you must always forge a unique bond with every child, whether they’re your biological kid or not. By the end of the interview, she even bragged she was like a grandmother to the interviewer!
It’s a rare and beautiful thing, to see a mother so passionate about raising kids in a loving home that she takes in as many as she can. For mothers like Alice, no gift we can give can truly communicate how much we appreciate them and all they’ve done for us. But if you give your mother a GrandPad, she’ll always have the vital connection to the children and grandchildren she loves endlessly. Show her how much you care by ensuring she can video call, email, and receive or share photos with everyone in her close circle this Mother’s Day.
