Mother’s Day: Seeing My Mother as a Woman

My mom has never made a big deal out of Mother’s Day, which is certainly pleasant for me and Dad.  A card is nice, flowers are always appreciated but not necessary, and you can pretty much stop right there.  No breakfast in bed (she would hate it).  No fuss.  No brunch or shopping or spa treatment (not our style, anyway).  For her, it is a made-up holiday to be tolerated.  Her refreshing approach cuts down on guilt and expenditures – I think it means more to me now that I’m older than it does to her, so I usually send an e-card and some flowers and, when long-distance, give her a call.  She’s always pleased and reminds me, sincerely:  “You didn’t have to do anything!”

Baby Me climbing Mother Mountain, roaring with delight

This year she got, in lieu of flowers, a $30 Amazon gift card, which she will hopefully spend on herself.  So given her low-key approach, I don’t have a soppy Mother’s Day message, but I do have some beautiful pictures my father sent us of Mom playing with me on the bed as a baby, and I wanted to post a few. 

 

The Joy of Mother’s Day

Today while doing my weekly major housecleaning I began to seethe quietly about my mother. A stupid thing brought it on. I was using one of the crotcheted dishcloths she buys me every year at the Church bazaar and remembering how she ragged on my ass over Christmas because I had failed to bleach them.

They are 50 cents each. They are shit — they absorb nothing. I use them because they are cute for the first two weeks, they look like some kind of little blanket you’d find in a dollhouse — and then I don’t give it a lot of thought, and I toss them out when they’ve outlived their welcome because I know I will get another 8,000 of them over the course of  the year (I especially appreciated getting them for my 40th birthday. Dishrags! Thanks, Mom! Hope they didn’t set you back too much!) But as I was preparing to cook a big turkey dinner, picking up some last-minute gifts, baking, cleaning up, organizing the entire holiday, I was catching shit from a snide old bag because I had failed to bleach her stupid-ass 50-cent dishrags.

HAPPY FUCKING MOTHER’S DAY!