In plain words
Even when her children were in the house of lac, she herself stayed with them in that same house of lac, wishing and praying for their welfare. Even when they had escaped the house of lac and were staying in an inn, there too she kept wishing in many ways for her children's welfare and progress, and praying to God. The Pāṇḍavas too, in keeping with this, kept growing their Prema for their mother moment by moment. And the root cause of Lakṣmaṇa's guarding his brother fourteen years in the forest, with his brother, joyfully giving up sleep and food, was Sumitrā's Prema alone. When Lakṣmaṇa was leaving Ayodhyā, Kausalyā too grieved that Rāma was going. But Sumitrā did not grieve. ‘My son, Lakṣmaṇa! Ayodhyā without Rāma is a forest to us. The forest where Rāma is, is Ayodhyā for you. Regard service to Rāma as service to me, give up even sleep and food, serve so that no displeasure comes to Rāma's mind, and then come back’: with these words she blessed him. Through the fruit of that mother's blessing alone, Lakṣmaṇa went on serving Rāma joyfully for fourteen years, without sleep or food. In short, in all the Purāṇas and in the sacred histories too, the mother's Prema, the mother's blessing, the mother's grace is the chief goal: this is what these Śarannavarātri go on teaching us so well.
After the war, Kṛṣṇa came to Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī, who were grieving over the loss of their sons, to speak with them. The moment she heard the news that Kṛṣṇa had come, uncontainable grief on one side and unbearable anger on the other rose up in Gāndhārī. She went up to Kṛṣṇa and held His hands tight: ‘Kṛṣṇa, why such partiality in You? Though You are God, is it just of You to look at one with one eye and at another with another? What is the reason the Pāṇḍavas are so dear to You and the Kauravas so far from dear? The five Pāṇḍavas are alive and well. Did Your heart not consent to keep alive even one of my hundred sons? Could You not have spared even one son, to offer at least a little rice-ball to his parents at the end? How did You come to have so hard a heart?’ With these words she reproached Kṛṣṇa in many ways, and unable to bear her grief, went on hurling many accusations at Kṛṣṇa. However many accusations she hurled, however much she kept reproaching Him, Kṛṣṇa kept smiling: Gāndhārī! This is not My fault. It is your fault alone. Did you ever, even for one moment, open your eyes and look at the sons born to you? Is there even one son who was blessed with your sight? How can one who was not blessed even with his mother's sight be blessed with the sight of God? Out of your selfishness, because your husband had no eyes, you too bound up your eyes, artificially.