Some Mothers Deserve More Than a Day

I feel sorry for women, and there are quite a few, who don’t have good relationships with their mothers. I can’t imagine it because I’ve been blessed with a mother who is beyond wonderful.

Even though I threw many a temper tantrum in childhood as well as in adulthood. Even though I retaliated for something one day, around the age of ten, by writing a four letter word on her favorite vegetable picture in the kitchen. Even though I dropped out of college and became an unenrolled drama major. She loved me through it all.

My mom has always been the person I could unburden my heart and soul to. She encouraged way more than she ever discouraged me. Her positive attitude overshadowed my negative thinking and allowed me to know hope when it’s not my nature to notice it. An avid reader and spiritual seeker, my mom saw to it that I learned and kept learning always. I’m grateful to her for seeing to it that I spelled and used words correctly. She never answered a question with “I don’t know” and I can’t ever remember her being to distracted to talk or listen. Never.

Today, my mom and I are in the middle of a long road together. She and I have seen a very mixed up young person through a very hard trial. I say we’re in the middle of the road because I hope, pray and believe that we’ve seen my son (her grandson) through the worst. But we have a long way to go on this journey. I couldn’t have done it this far without her help and support. She’s always been there, steadfast and unwavering, for me and for him. That’s a mother’s love.

I hear so many people talk about how critical their mothers are, or how distant. I hear about mothers who are jealous of their daughters or who manipulate and make unreasonable demands. Not mine. She’d give up the last thing she had for me or for my son. And her mother was the same way. When I think of the word “legacy” I think of the two of them and what they passed on to me. I don’t have a daughter and my son has gone through times of less than stellar behavior but I see sprigs of new green growth in him that foster hope and reveal signs that this legacy will live on.

My mom calls Mother’s Day a Hallmark holiday and always implores me not to make a big deal of it. But when I think of the ways she touches my life, every single day, it’s impossible not to honor her and whatever ways I find to do that on Mother’s Day seem inadequate.

I know how hard it is to be a mother, to feel pain–like we’ve never felt for ourselves–for our kids. I understand what it is to sacrifice and how bone tiring it is to love and try to protect when you feel like every ounce of energy has been wrung from your body and your soul. And then you do it some more. Because I know this feeling, my appreciation to the person who’s done it for me for over 43 years is so great, there isn’t a word strong enough to describe it. And, if there is, my mom knows what it is. Just like she knows the capital of Vermont is Montpelier and she knows Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a wretched piece of literature, so bad that she let me read the cliff notes.