I’m going to start off this post by saying
that my mom deserves every accolade out there—she is funny, wicked smart and her
good health and youthful appearance gives me great hope for my own genetics. While
now I truly consider her a friend, when I was younger, my mom managed to
strike that amazing balance of being approachable while not trying to be a
teenager herself. In other words, I wasn’t allowed to run wild and I was
expected to get good grades, but I felt comfortable telling her about the awkwardness of basically everything associated with
growing up.
Perhaps most importantly, she raised me
with incredible values, taught my brother and me how to respect others and
always encouraged us to be ourselves--even when it seemed like the world was
telling us otherwise. Even now that we are both adults, she always puts us
first, is super proud of our achievements and supports us when we need a hand. Sometimes
she says things I don’t really want to hear, as moms do, but I can say with
1000% confidence that she is the best and Jacob and I are lucky to have her.
As I’ve gotten older, ‘lucky to have her’
has taken on some new meaning. While Mother’s Day for me and Jacob is a time of
true celebration for the kick-ass woman who put(s) up with us, it’s become more
apparent the last few years that for some, Mother’s Day is anything but joyous.
While of course tragedies happen at any turn, it’s a reality that they happen
more frequently with age, and many people in my life have parents who are
starting to get sick or have passed away. In other cases, people also associate
Mother’s Day with being, rather than having, a mother and this day can be
painful for someone who has experienced a miscarriage, the death of a child or estrangement
from a son or daughter.
Social media makes this a million times
worse. While I too have taken part in the ‘My Mom rules!’ Facebook postings,
complete with a cute pictures of the two of us when I was little, I can only
assume that people who feel sad on Mother’s Day also generally dread the
internet around this time. When you’ve experienced that kind of pain, it puts
salt in the wound to be faced with a barrage of people reminding you, without
necessarily meaning to, what they have that you don’t. And, this is on top of
all the advertising and marketing that goes into Mother’s Day, from special
deals at stores to prix-fixe menus to ‘recommended reads for Mom.’ If you’re
lucky, you revel in the festivities, but if the day brings mixed emotions, it
can all be a little much.
For this reason, I won’t share this post on
social media. If you’re reading it, it’s probably because I sent it to you directly
or someone else did. I of course want to honour my mother as I do every year,
but this time I’ll try to do so in a way that’s sensitive to those who are not
so lucky.
This brings me to my final point. At the
end of the day, I don’t need to tell the whole world how amazing my mom is, but
in the spirit of what I’ve just said, I should probably tell her a little more
often. So Mom:
Thank you for your infinite patience over
the last 28 and a half years. Thank you for the meals, the rides, and the
homework help. Thank you for listening to me drone on for hours about my day,
and thank you for not getting upset when I sometimes forget to ask about yours.
Thank you for indulging my picky eating. Thank you for showing (not telling) me
how to be a strong woman with an independent mind. Thank you for being the most
loyal reader of this blog, and of everything I write. And thank you most of all
for just being you, and for always, always, letting me be me. You are the best
mom ever, and I love you so very much. Happy Mother’s Day.
