It is a well know truth in nursing that people with dementia ask for their mothers. Of course, most of those people are old enough that their mothers are no longer alive, but even when our mothers leave us physically they never leave us completely.
We keep some of their habits, mannerisms, values, beliefs. I know a couple that, cutely, calls their other half the name of his or her parents whenever this truth is blatant. “Okay, Bettie! I’ll get up and help.”
When the mind is addled by disease these deep imprints are not erased. Someone who cannot remember what was said one minute ago can often sing their favorite hymns, all the verses, in tune. Our mothers are often the personification of safety and security. So much so that when patients with dementia start asking for their mothers often, we as nurses start to get worried about them. Are they getting worse? Are they about to die?
It is easy to feel like motherhood is a thankless drudgery because sometimes it is. But there is also something eternal in a mother comforting her child. Something that never leaves that child. Something that will comfort them until the day they die. So thank you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day everyone.
A Gray Matter 
One more reason why we should, at least half the time, use “she” for God and/or play up maternal imagery to describe the divine.
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:). Good point. It’s had to imagine anything outside an experiencial anchor, and if we want others to understand God as loving we’d do better to use the pronoun for, on the whole, the more loving gender, more often.
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