5 minute read
Mother's Day
Much has been said, and should be, about motherhood, one of the primary, most epic of human relationships. Motherhood is the stuff of great literature, of famous works of art, of life itself. And soon we celebrate the role of mothers with little ol’ Mother’s Day.
Funny that many of the greeting card depictions concerning motherhood bear little resemblance to the role itself. When I think of mothers I do not think flower bouquets, velvet ribbons and sweet rhymes found on greeting cards. I think chapped hands, an iron will and management of vast amounts of children’s bodily fluids over the course of many years, which admittedly is difficult material to combine into something Hallmark can make use of. Even ‘speeches’ delivered for mothers often strike me as if written for an entirely different group of people.
Motherhood is not a sweet romantic role, but an earthy, practical, sticky one. We get our hands dirty, we carry a lot of things, we feel the life lived by another and we make a lot of sandwiches. A woman who becomes a mother is never completely autonomous again, never really alone in her thoughts or actions. Mother’s Day is celebrated in sweet little ways at home that can never match the occasion. But weirdly gold spray-painted and glued macaroni can go a surprisingly long way, as can a “surprise breakfast” made of ingredients never before combined on one plate. Practical gifts, such a babysitting or a prepared meal, are most appreciated especially by mothers of young children. For any adult looking to provide for a special mother they know, sleep is the gift of choice. Young mothers are so desperate for sleep they would happily curl up in an aisle of Costco if that meant for some uninterrupted sleep while you shopped with their kids. Funny enough, the person most likely to provide these kinds of practical, “hands-on” services is usually none other than the woman’s mother herself.
The trick to understanding Mother’s Day, or being a mother in general, is the awareness that moments arranged, even contrived, to be lovely and sentimental often are not.
During spring break I witnessed a potentially gorgeous, but ill-fated beach photo shoot of a woman and her two daughters go horribly wrong as the four year old girl melted down big time. The photographer looked exasperated and the beautiful mom crestfallen. I thought they should have taken the photos anyway; they might have become favourites in years to come.
Our family often refers to my famously deflated Mother’s Day moment when one of our daughters in preschool was asked to finish the sentence
the answer to which was then scribed in a large cheerily decorated preschool card and read aloud at a presentation for mothers. Her experienced, older preschool teacher, a mother of grown children, smiled as she read my daughter’s response of
Maybe it is that simple. Or maybe I really did need to step up my game a bit.
Another Mother’s Day sentimental-momentgone-wrong occurred with our 12 year old son after his long suffering teacher had done her best to have students produce a beautifully painted trinket box symbolic of their love for their devoted mothers. My tiny wooden box was unveiled having been painted an edgy but not exactly detailed solid matte black because “it was fastest that way.” I inspected it, paint smeared and blobbed on unevenly, and exclaimed “Wow, this is really terrible.” My son looked at me accusingly and said, “Most mothers would never say that to their kid, you know.” And I responded, “Most kids don't paint their mother’s box completely black to save time.” He held the stare, but then broke down laughing. As we laughed and teased each other I felt as though I could just squish him with love. We still understand each other in this way and that is such a joy.
These moments cannot be orchestrated by the mother. They are provided by life: your child running through the house and stopping to kiss you for no reason, being comforted by your grown child, seeing your children laughing with your parents, watching your child do something you know he is afraid to do.
Heart-wrenching and frightening moments are also impossible to avoid in the mothering experience. Our children’s path to adulthood is often perilous, physically and otherwise, and that can feel worse than if these struggles were our own. The richness a mother feels after weathering her child’s recovery from a serious illness or from difficult events is incomparable. For days after finally receiving a diagnosis and treatment for the aggressive skin infection that was burning, blistering, and bubbling our 3 year old’s entire body, I felt, between my random bursting into tears, waves of utter relief such that nothing else could possibly matter.
Yes, these children stretch our bodies, and then they stretch our hearts, our ability to adapt, our tolerance, our capacity to feel. Thank goodness love is not a material thing and that with the addition of these people and events and the passage of years love multiplies not divides. And so we push on, mothers everywhere, scolding, washing, cuddling, and loving fiercely in a way we never knew possible.
Enjoy the macaroni crafts and the crepepaper flowers and the unevenly buttered toast handed to you by someone with eyes like your mother’s. Then go telephone your mother, if you are still blessed to have her, and tell her one of your favourite childhood memories of her, even the ridiculously unsentimental ones. Perhaps she gave you gum once.
Let the beautiful moments roll on between bandaids and loads of laundry.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Sue Dvorak, a physiotherapist, her husband Marcel and their six children, aged 12-22, live in Dunbar area, where over the past 21 years have found their parish, preschool, elementary school, shops and services, playgrounds, friends, soccer teams and more.
