Happy Mothering Sunday
This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day in the U.K.. Formerly known as Mothering Sunday, it’s the day when we offspring shower our mothers with flowers, chocolates, and cards that tells her what a wonderful mother she is.
My middle brother’s traditional Mother’s Day gift is a bag of compost. Not your typical gift, in fact it could even be construed as offensive. But not so. My mother is an avid gardener so my brother driving to the garden center, lugging a huge bag of muck home and dumping it in my mother’s potting shed for her means she doesn’t have to do it herself. It’s a perfect and considerate gift from a perfect and considerate son. As for me, I’ll be calling my mother this Sunday to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and to apologize for sending her nothing.
It’s not that I don’t care; it’s just that when it’s Mother’s Day for my Mum, it’s not Mother’s Day for me here in the U.S.. My calendar doesn’t have it clearly printed to remind me, and the card stores are full of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter cards. There’s not a Dear Loving Mother card to be seen. To further throw me off the scent, Mothering Sunday doesn’t fall at the same time each year. While Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November and Christmas is always December 25th, and Mother’s Day in the U.S. is the second Sunday in May, Mothering Sunday falls on the middle Sunday between Lent and Easter, and as you know, that changes from year to year.
If this all sounds like a lot of weak excuses for forgetting to send my Mum a Mother’s Day card—again—it is. Even telling myself that it’s better this way because my Mum gets two Mother’s Days, the U.K. one in March and the U.S. one in May, it’s a weak argument. Come Sunday, her mantelpiece will only hold two cards--one from each of my brothers-- and in her potting shed will be a new a bag of dirt.
As if this isn’t enough, my mother won’t say a word about it! She won’t grumble or drop thinly veiled hints about what good sons she has. She won’t complain about me to her friends and she won’t cut me out of her will. That’s the main problem with my Mum—she’s not normal.
My other friends have mothers who have refused to speak to them for months because they didn’t call for two weeks. They have mothers who pit one sibling against another or spend family holidays lamenting that their own offspring could never compare to the neighbors’ perfect kids. Not my Mum. She never sticks her nose into my business. She never tells me how she would run my life if she were me. She likes my husband and she waits patiently and silently for grandchildren from me. We can take her on vacation with us and she doesn’t complain about the food, the weather or the locals. She’s never embarrassed me by causing a scene in a restaurant or demanding to speak to the manager in a store. You see, she just not right!
I didn’t actually forget it was Mother’s Day, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this now with two days left to go. I did however forget until it was too late to do much about it. The only way to have a card arrive in time would have been to send it via Global Express Mail. At a cost of $25.25 it would have been worth it. But my mother is British; she’s fed a family of five for a week on $25.25. That kind of frivolous wastefulness is just so…well, American. I could have sent her flowers, but she’s leaving on Sunday afternoon to go on a trip to the coast with her seniors dancing club (understand that although my mother will be 75 this year, she’s about as senior as me—maybe less so (see October 26 posting below)). Anyway, sending flowers would be another waste if she’s not going to be there and we’ve already been over the whole wastefulness thing.
So, what can a lowly writer do, impeded by incomplete calendars and overpriced courier services? All I can do is write. Write here about how wonderful my mother is, how I wouldn’t swap her for any other mother in the world, about how fortunate I am to have her as a role model for how to live and that if I could clone her, I wouldn’t just be able to retire to that island in the Indian Ocean, I’d be able to buy it. And of course, I’d take my Mum with me.
So, here’s to my Mum and all the other wonderful mothers out there who can only wish they were as fabulous as mine.
HAPPY MOTHERING SUNDAY
My middle brother’s traditional Mother’s Day gift is a bag of compost. Not your typical gift, in fact it could even be construed as offensive. But not so. My mother is an avid gardener so my brother driving to the garden center, lugging a huge bag of muck home and dumping it in my mother’s potting shed for her means she doesn’t have to do it herself. It’s a perfect and considerate gift from a perfect and considerate son. As for me, I’ll be calling my mother this Sunday to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and to apologize for sending her nothing.
It’s not that I don’t care; it’s just that when it’s Mother’s Day for my Mum, it’s not Mother’s Day for me here in the U.S.. My calendar doesn’t have it clearly printed to remind me, and the card stores are full of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter cards. There’s not a Dear Loving Mother card to be seen. To further throw me off the scent, Mothering Sunday doesn’t fall at the same time each year. While Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November and Christmas is always December 25th, and Mother’s Day in the U.S. is the second Sunday in May, Mothering Sunday falls on the middle Sunday between Lent and Easter, and as you know, that changes from year to year.
If this all sounds like a lot of weak excuses for forgetting to send my Mum a Mother’s Day card—again—it is. Even telling myself that it’s better this way because my Mum gets two Mother’s Days, the U.K. one in March and the U.S. one in May, it’s a weak argument. Come Sunday, her mantelpiece will only hold two cards--one from each of my brothers-- and in her potting shed will be a new a bag of dirt.
As if this isn’t enough, my mother won’t say a word about it! She won’t grumble or drop thinly veiled hints about what good sons she has. She won’t complain about me to her friends and she won’t cut me out of her will. That’s the main problem with my Mum—she’s not normal.
My other friends have mothers who have refused to speak to them for months because they didn’t call for two weeks. They have mothers who pit one sibling against another or spend family holidays lamenting that their own offspring could never compare to the neighbors’ perfect kids. Not my Mum. She never sticks her nose into my business. She never tells me how she would run my life if she were me. She likes my husband and she waits patiently and silently for grandchildren from me. We can take her on vacation with us and she doesn’t complain about the food, the weather or the locals. She’s never embarrassed me by causing a scene in a restaurant or demanding to speak to the manager in a store. You see, she just not right!
I didn’t actually forget it was Mother’s Day, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this now with two days left to go. I did however forget until it was too late to do much about it. The only way to have a card arrive in time would have been to send it via Global Express Mail. At a cost of $25.25 it would have been worth it. But my mother is British; she’s fed a family of five for a week on $25.25. That kind of frivolous wastefulness is just so…well, American. I could have sent her flowers, but she’s leaving on Sunday afternoon to go on a trip to the coast with her seniors dancing club (understand that although my mother will be 75 this year, she’s about as senior as me—maybe less so (see October 26 posting below)). Anyway, sending flowers would be another waste if she’s not going to be there and we’ve already been over the whole wastefulness thing.
So, what can a lowly writer do, impeded by incomplete calendars and overpriced courier services? All I can do is write. Write here about how wonderful my mother is, how I wouldn’t swap her for any other mother in the world, about how fortunate I am to have her as a role model for how to live and that if I could clone her, I wouldn’t just be able to retire to that island in the Indian Ocean, I’d be able to buy it. And of course, I’d take my Mum with me.
So, here’s to my Mum and all the other wonderful mothers out there who can only wish they were as fabulous as mine.
Labels: mother day
posted by Lisa at 10:35 AM
2 Comments:
aww, your mom sounds like a dream. mine, well... she's definitely got some disturbing tendencies. but she also sent me care packages to the US with stuff i couldn't get there. and she still does it even while i'm in berlin - just in case they don't sell any maggi instant soups in northern germany...
I love it! Last time my Mum came to visit, she had an entire suitcase full of things it's just impossible to get here--chocolate, deodorant, tea and cold medicine. It's good to be taken car eof, though.
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