Let's be honest. I dreaded writing a post for Mother's Day. I knew things were going to be -- interesting -- when I came home from an all-day writing workshop yesterday afternoon and had to reassure Oliver that it was all right if he had forgotten to take the money Dad had given him and walk around the corner to our neighborhood store to buy me a present. A few hours later, Henry came home from his last baseball game, angry and upset that he had only played two innings and that they had lost the game and baseball was over and he sucked as a player and I don't want to talk about it anymore, Mom. An hour or so after that, The Husband came home and I overheard some tight whispering and then Oliver stormed down the hall to his room.
Reader, why the hell is there this silly day that we call Mother's Day? Why, why, why are we set up, year after year to engage in this charade of celebration? As much as I love and am grateful for my mother, I can't remember a single Mother's Day as a child. Did we do enough? Did Dad buy appropriate gifts for her? Was she happy? Did she feel taken for granted? Sigh.
I woke up this morning to texts from both of my sisters, Melissa and Jennifer, whom I rarely write about or mention on the blog. They are both terrific mothers, and we are probably better friends now, at the ages of 39, 47 and 49 than we ever were as children. We share the same brutal sense of humor and realized that even now at our advanced ages, we are hard put to appreciate enough our own mother and feel appreciated enough by our own children. We won't even talk about The Husbands. What the hey?
I woke up this morning to no presents, but The Husband made me my favorite breakfast and gave me perfectly gorgeous flowers. It's enough. It's enough. It's enough.
Happy Mother's Day to the rest of you. Now let's begin again tomorrow, my favorite day of the week.
Happy Mother's Day, Elizabeth....really; it should be your day...all day; tomorrow will come too quickly!
ReplyDeleteOh Elizabeth...you have my complete empathy...I have suffered through about 42 Mothers Days' here and about 1/8 of them were memorable. Every day is mothers day when you have children, and you prove that over and over again.
ReplyDeletePS--That breakfast looks yummy.
I hope you enjoy the day, Elizabeth. You deserve a day of recognition for all you do and for the special person you are to so many.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking along the same line as you today. Mother's Day has grown beyond what it needs to be. Cook a meal, make a card, some flowers, share some memories - all or any is enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had a delicious breakfast! It's a pretty ridiculous day, although I did enjoy the cards that Maybelle was forced to make at school. And since I'm single-parenting these days, I got to create my own Mother's Day--which was nice.
ReplyDeleteI knew Mother's Day was problematic when on my very first one, my baby boy mere months old, my husband didn't manage to pull off the flowers or a card and as I huffed inwardly that I would never again have a first Mother's Day I decided right then and there to release all expectation around it. Some years it's perfectly lovely and some years it is enough. Whatever it is, it is enough. You are very wise.
ReplyDeleteI have no gifts but I can make you laugh. Go here.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DLZZv5nPv8I
Bless you! It has gotten to the point now where my kids worry that their gifts aren't good enough (Lola made me a pair of earrings that are enormous and so very ambitious and she worked so hard) and they struggle to not bicker as they are wont to do. Bubba ends up doing one load of laundry, cooking breakfast, cajoling the kids into emptying the dishwasher and hissing at them to stop fighting over who is doing more as I feign ignorance in the next room and try to keep from shoving them out of the way and doing it in 1/10 of the time. I know they love me and I love them dearly, but I don't think we can ever truly appreciate someone until we have walked in their shoes and, please God, let their days as mothers come many decades from now! I love this post so much. Thank you for telling it like it is.
ReplyDeleteHallmark holidays suck. This one is almost over. Rejoice.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a truly lovely Monday!!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Bonnie
This is one of your greatest posts ever.... I thank you for it...
ReplyDeleteending a beautiful mother's day... the parts I orchestrated were of course the parts I liked the best. As it should be!
looking forward to tomorrow as well and hope Oliver got over his completely unnecessary but socially pressured upset. Please tell him from me that his words from the previous post about why his dad married you were the best present a mom could ever receive.
BTW.. I'm sure Henry is a great baseball player.. Enjoy Monday.
http://zinnedproject.org/2013/05/mothers-day-for-peace/
ReplyDeleteI may have to reconsider my extreme dislike of this day
To my darling Elizabeth whom I consider to be one of the best mothers on earth: WHERE IS THE RUBY CROWN WITH DIAMONDS?
ReplyDeletein my heart, I am giving it to you and also a month of Sundays to rest and to refuel in whatever ways you need, your heart, your head, your funny bone. I so wish I could give you these.
And thank-you, for mothering me when I need it and for understanding when I am mean as a snake and for all of the love and the light.
Really.
Love...Mary
An interesting point. I don't remember Mother's Day celebrations either, but I know we must have given Alice something or other plus a card. Appreciation? Hardly. Anyway, I think you and Mary take the cake(s) in the mothering department and I'm appreciating the hell out of you both from afar.
ReplyDeleteBreakfast and flowers sounds like a PERFECT Mother's Day celebration! I sent my poor underappreciated mother an e-mail. But then again, I'm flying over to see her in a few weeks, so hopefully that ameliorates my Mother's Day neglect.
ReplyDeletegirl. i am so, so with you on this. we don't really do mother's and father's day in this house (or valentine's day for that matter). i feel so much pressure already...i don't need arbitrary holidays adding to my stress. we acknowledge it and my daughter made me presents at school that made me cry. but that's about it. bryan let me sleep in and he got up with the kids (he is NOT a morning person) and there were no flowers, no breakfast in bed, none of that. honestly? i felt relieved. i would rather have flowers picked from the garden on a random afternoon. forever and ever. amen.
ReplyDeleteMy mother's day is forever tainted by the fact that Sophie had her stroke on that day in 2000. But, this mother's day I will never forget. I was waiting in the typical awful waiting room where I met a little girl of 8, who looked 5, who was obviously intllectually disabled. She immediately engaged me in conversation, stroked my arms and hair and for 10 minutes I was in heaven with this little girl who said things that came directly from heaven. She said she wanted to be a sunflower when she grew up and announced, too, "I like talking to you. And you are gorgeous." I burst into tears. Happiest day of my life.
ReplyDeleteMother's Day can be quite exhausting, can't it. Mine yesterday was actually the best I have ever had - possibly because my child just returned from her first year at college and there is still a sense of missing each other. Also possibly because my gifts were yard word being completed and an amazing grilled steak dinner. But the neighbors on both sides were seen arguing with their children who were probably stressed out because it was Mother's Day.
ReplyDeleteI am with you. I hate Mother's Day, Father's Day. I hate Valentine's Day and I even hate Christmas. But anyway, we had bagels and lox with capers and dill, which is my favorite thing, so that was great.
ReplyDeleteYes to all of that, and a big yes to Mondays, my favorite day of the week, for sure!
ReplyDeleteWhen I woke up on Mother's Day I had the same disgusted feeling I have at Christmas, and Valentine's Day and all the other ridiculous manufactured, commercialized tacky holidays I am forced to endure. Bah. I am a grumpy old woman and I don't need a $3 card or an awful $15.99 bouquet from the grocery store, or a giant box of chocolates. Ugh. Your breakfast looked perfect.
ReplyDeleteI bought myself a lovely planter from the local nursery a few days ago and told everyone thanks, this is all the gift I need. Both my kids were home, we ate leftovers and had a lazy, do nothing Sunday and I got over my cranky self. It might have been the mimosas that helped, who knows, but here's to tomorrow, a perfectly holiday and expectation free day :)
i'm with you, girl.
ReplyDeleteI love Mother's day, but my kids hate it .... I wish they could understand that a hug and a kiss is truly enough ... and a kitchen/laundry/bickering free day is nice too :)
ReplyDeleteah mothers day... that one day a year when we can feel a bit let down. Write it on the calendar - I will be a bit disappointed today! LOL! well, at least I still have little kids who think mothers day is the best thing ever and hand over fistfuls of homemade gifts :)!! The day itself though is always a day I wish to escape and relax but end up being swarmed with family, kids, in-laws, etc. I think I need to just run away and hide that day on a lonely mountain reading. That would make it fantastic.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you are a WONDERFUL mom and that's all that you need to know - a wonderful mom not just on MOthers Day, but everyday :)
to be honest, i've always found these recurrences a little sad and irritating. i don't want the calendar or, worse, a commercial to remind me and my family that it's a day to celebrate mothers, women, fathers and so on. a day a year? what is it supposed to mean?! twenty-four hours and then we forget? so, we don't do mothers day.
ReplyDelete