Mothers' Day is the single most popular day to eat out or to make a long distance telephone call -- that's a lot of mothers eating eggs Benedict or reaching for the phone. Some of us send our mom flowers, others bring her chocolates, still others give their mother gift certificates or new sweaters or even pay a few bills just to help out.

We do this to celebrate a sappy, overly commercial holiday, a kind of saccharine day of tribute tinted pink and baby-blue and smelling of violets. And if you dare forget it, even the most counter-cultural mom who wants nothing commercial or made of plastic will be secretly, enduringly hurt.

But this holiday's roots are in something much more serious and substantial, a "Mothers' Peace Day" started by activist and author Julia Ward Howe in 1870. Howe, author of the lyrics to the Union Army's theme song, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," established the day to celebrate the role of mothers and also spread the gospel about world peace and non-violence.

That original meaning of Mothers' Day brings to mind Sally Goodrich, the University of Maine at Farmington commencement speaker on May 17. Goodrich's son Peter, 33, a former track and field star at Bates College, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when the plane on which he was flying was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center.

By all accounts, Peter Goodrich was a golden boy turned to wonderful man, a curious and loving soul whose playful intellect and warm heart embraced everything from playing chess to rooting for the Red Sox.

If ever someone had a reason to become bitter and angry and shut the door on life, it would be Sally Goodrich. With a son murdered by terrorists, she and her husband, Don, both spent a few years in the depths of despair, trying their damnedest to make sense out of the most horrible situation a parent can confront: outliving a child.

But then came renewed purpose. Through a childhood acquaintance of Peter's then serving in the military in Afghanistan, Sally and Don Goodrich learned about the needs of that country's children. They didn't have school supplies. Many didn't even have schools to go to in a nation where the Taliban had deemed the education of girls an offense punishable by death. Could Sally and Don help collect supplies?

"That was the beginning," Sally told a Boston Globe reporter.

From that moment on, Sally Goodrich devoted her fierce intelligence and drive to helping the children of Afghanistan. She and her family have raised the money to build a school for 500 girls there and to help support an orphanage and two other schools. They've taken three teenage Afghan girls into their Vermont home to allow them to pursue an American education.

And Goodrich has journeyed many times to an increasingly dangerous Afghanistan. She's gone to see the results of her work and, even more importantly, understand the psyche of the country that harbored the terrorist who plotted her son's murder along with thousands of others that terrible September day.

The generosity of Goodrich's heart is almost unfathomable.

To recover from a child's death is in itself a huge undertaking -- and perhaps an unachievable one. But to redeem that death through embracing the citizens of the country that spawned his murderers is an act of pure grace.

We will celebrate this Mothers' Day by thinking of Sally Goodrich, and the immensity of her maternal spirit.