Mother’s Day Tribute
This weekend, we celebrate Mother’s Day—a time to honor moms and a chance to reflect on the many gifts our mothers have given us. Some are clear and cherished; others may reveal their meaning over time.
I hope you’ll enjoy the brief sketch I drew about my mother in her honor, and I invite you to join me in reflecting on the mothers in your life. If you’d like to share your story, send us a short blog (around 500 words) about your mother, and as a thank-you, I’ll send you a free copy of The Word of the Day book.
Wishing a heartfelt Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and to the “mothers of our hearts,” this Sunday and every day!
Professor Marilyn Horowitz
Just Call Me Professor: A Daughter’s Ode to the Most Formidable Woman on Central Park West
When someone asked my mother how she preferred to be addressed, she’d offer a slight smile — the kind you might miss if you weren’t paying close attention — and say,
“Oh, don’t be formal. Just call me Professor.”
And she meant it.
She held a PhD in philosophy, specialized in the philosophy of logic, earned a law degree just to keep things interesting, and had no patience for either lazy thinking or tepid conversation. She lived in a penthouse on Central Park West, filled with her own oil paintings, fresh roses, and the occasional legal pad scribbled with what I can only assume were arguments she hadn’t quite finished having.
She wasn’t just brilliant. She was precise.
Gift #1: A Mind Like a Diamond
You did not win arguments with my mother. You lost them — cleanly, definitively, and with such intellectual elegance that you found yourself thanking her.
Logic was her native language. She could spot a fallacy from across a cocktail party and dismantle it mid-sip. As a child, I once tried to weasel out of cleaning my room by claiming I’d done it “last week.” She blinked slowly and said,
“Irrelevant premise. Try again.”
She was not unkind. She was exacting. And that was love, the way she practiced it.
Gift #2: Beauty as a Non-Negotiable
Her apartment was not decorated — it was composed.
The walls were hung with her paintings: abstract, emotional, never sentimental. Always roses in the hall — never daisies, never herbs. She disapproved of plants that looked like they might go in soup.
She loved the symphony, the opera, and quiet walks in the Ramble with gloves and a point of view. Even her silences were elegant. She did not fuss. She did not ramble. She wore pearls without irony and listened to Mahler like it was medicine.
To her, refinement was not snobbery. It was structure. Life needed it. So did people.
Gift #3: Discipline Without Drama
She never yelled. She didn’t need to.
Disapproval was conveyed with a slight downturn of the mouth. A raised eyebrow. A quiet, “I’m surprised at you.” That sentence once made me rethink my entire adolescence.
She believed in restraint, dignity, and taking responsibility for your own thinking.
Her famous line, delivered more than once when I complained:
“You’re free to do as you please. But not free from the consequences. That’s logic, not punishment.”
And you couldn’t argue with logic. I know. I tried.
Gift #4: A Rose Garden on the Roof
She didn’t garden. She cultivated.
On the rooftop of her building, she kept roses — rare, demanding, and utterly beautiful. She spoke to them. Pruned them with surgical care. She never called it a hobby. It was a responsibility. She once told me,
“You have to understand what something needs before you can love it properly.”
She may have been talking about the roses. But I was standing there, too.
Gift #5: Sartre, Logic, and the Virtue of Silence
She loved Sartre, not because he was trendy (she had no tolerance for academic fads), but because he understood something she knew in her bones: we are what we choose, and we are always choosing.
“Freedom isn’t always pleasant,” she’d say. “But it’s the only honest position.”
If you brought her a melodrama — a tale of someone done wrong by fate or circumstance — she’d listen, then quietly say,
“Yes, but what did they choose next?”
She didn’t believe in wallowing. She believed in response. In intention.
And she could be silent in the face of emotion — not because she didn’t feel, but because she refused to manipulate with sympathy. Her stillness had gravity.
Gift #6: The City Was Her Reflection
She was born and bred in Manhattan, and it showed. She walked like a woman who never got lost. She had opinions about Carnegie Hall acoustics, Met programming schedules, and whether Rigoletto had been properly cast that season.
She would never use the phrase “the city that never sleeps.” That was for tourists. She said simply,
“New York makes sense. The rest of the world dithers.”
To her, the city’s energy was logical — efficient, unsentimental, clear. Like her.
Gift #7: The Ongoing Lecture in My Head
Even now, I hear her voice when I begin to waffle on a decision.
“Pick. You’re free. But don’t complain.”
When I consider wearing something sloppy to the store:
“You’re representing yourself. Try to look like it.”
And every time I overcomplicate something, I can hear the unmistakable click of her pen followed by:
“You’re confusing clarity with depth. Start over.”
She taught me how to think. Not what to think — she had far too much respect for autonomy. But she expected me to earn my opinions the way she earned her degrees: rigorously, consciously, and in heels.
Just Call Her Professor
She gave me life, but she also gave me structure, intellectual integrity, and the capacity to admire truth, beauty, and difficult questions in equal measure.
There was nothing bohemian about her. No scented candles, no self-help mantras, no cardigan-draped vulnerability. She was clear. She was cultivated. She was utterly original.
So yes, if you ever met her, and you asked what to call her — she’d offer that sly smile and say:
“Oh, don’t be formal — just call me Professor.”
But say it with respect. And for God’s sake, don’t show up with a basil plant.
The Worry Webinar Series Continues
on Wednesday, May 21 at 7:00 pm EST
In the next FREE webinar, discover a powerful, creative approach to handling worry. Using the Beyond Happiness Method, you’ll learn how to turn your worries into stories, insights, and actions that empower you.
Instead of pushing worry aside or getting stuck in overthinking, you’ll discover how to contain, explore, and transform worry into clarity, inspiration and sometimes humor, with proven, creative techniques.
✅ Learn a step-by-step process to calm your mind and shift your perspective
✅ Experience a guided “Worry Ritual” to release anxiety and regain focus
✅ Walk away with a creative tool you can use anytime life feels heavy
English 
Spanish