You can choose your friends but you only have one mother. My mother just turned 86, bless her heart. She’s been my mom for over sixty-five of those years and she’s still waiting for me to eat all my vegetables. “Think of all those starving Armenians,” she used to say. I’m not sure there even is an Armenia anymore and, if so, I have no idea where it is. But I know where my mom is. She’s living with my sister who, it turns out, has more saint in her than I would ever have expected. When we were little, my mom would always be reminding us to wash our hands, clean our rooms, pick up our socks, blow our noses, and not use the you-know-which word. I suspect that she’s still reminding my sister of those things, which is how I know that a mother’s love never ends.
A mother’s love comes in stages, like a NASA rocket. The first stage stays true through infancy and childhood up until puberty. Then it shifts into a higher gear to help guide you through young adulthood until marriage. The third stage is sometimes called the mother-in-law phase. With some people, this final stage turns on and off, on and off, depending upon how many divorces and re-marriages you have. But the one thing that is constant is the love and concern your mom has for you. Another word for “concern” is nagging; this is just an irritable form of a mom’s love that everyone learns to live with.
Moms will always be there to pick up after you. I must not have cleaned up my room well before I left for college because, years later, when I went back looking for my irreplaceable baseball card collection and my comic books, they were nowhere to be found. “How can I remember that after all these years?” my mom sniffed, wiping her hands on her apron. “Go wash your hands for dinner.”
Mother’s Day is such a small tribute for such a great woman as your mom. After all her years of sacrifice, the least you can do is remember her on this day. The fact that greeting card manufacturers, florists, and chocolate purveyors are getting rich off it shouldn’t dissuade you from sending an appropriate gift to help her celebrate this occasion. You should drop a dime on your long distance carrier too, as they provide the means to actually talk to your mom on her big day if she doesn’t live near enough to visit.
As for me, I never go overboard with the gift stuff. I sent my mom a nice free e-card. I think she appreciates the frugality.
posted on May 10, 2008 7:37 AM ()
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