A mother-of-all day

Mother’s Day is the one day a year when I don’t miss my late mom. Not because we weren’t close, and not because I didn’t want to celebrate her. But because we never seemed to be able to get it right. For whatever reason, once a year on Mother’s Day, we were set up to fail. And worse than that, to disappoint.

There’s a chance that my late mom herself didn’t enjoy the day. It might have been that that she resented sharing it with other mothers because being the mother that she was, perhaps she felt that she should be given her own day. Dedicated to her.

Other mothers were fine, in her view of the world. And they were perfectly entitled to their own notion of motherhood. But they were obviously not of her standard. And whereas they might have thought that they had something to be proud of when it came to their children, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that those other mother’s kids wouldn’t hold a candle to her offspring.

Shame.

Mother’s Day presents two main challenges: the gift and the get together. Whereas for many this provides two opportunities to demonstrate love and appreciation, for us it offered multiple stress points.

Because there was slim-to-no chance that we could get both right on any given year. A successful year would be one out of the two.

In fairness, my late mother never communicated her disappointment. She would accept the gift with the good grace and delight of someone who had been waiting the whole year for that scarf. She would even manage a “This is just what I needed” – not that “need” was something she could relate to. An onlooker would be convinced. But we knew that it was a matter of time until the truth would become clear when we would spot an Oaklands car guard adorned in the same Hermes scarf that my mom had really needed.

It took us years to get used to seeing our offerings worn by random strangers who indeed really did “need” it. And try as we might to convince ourselves that it was the thought that counts, we knew that it really wasn’t.

To make matters worse, if confronted, she would look us in the eye and deny the accusation with the horror of the genuinely innocent. “I wear it all the time!” she would insist so sincerely that we would doubt our own eyes and sanity. And then she would artfully change the subject so as not to dwell on such nonsense.

Kids.

There’s an awful trend, started by us orphans I assume, to make those with mothers feel guilty about feeling poorly about the day. The idea is to make victims of the motherless, and to force those navigating the day to spare a thought for those of us who can no longer celebrate the day with our moms. It’s absurd and unfair. Because it’s not about Mother’s Day at all.

The reality is that Mother’s Day without a mom might feel empty. But then, for me, so does every day when I hear a story that she would appreciate. Or when I reach for my phone to call her to tell her something wicked. Or when I drive past Oaklands, and I see a car guard in a Hermes scarf.