This is the 110th year that we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day in every U.S. state, according to Wikipedia.
My earliest memories of celebrating my mom involved breaking off a few purple lilac blooms from the backyard and wrapping them in a damp paper towel to present to her on her big day.
There was probably a homemade card colored in crayon or something built out of Elmer’s glue, popsicle sticks, and yarn from school. No matter what I gave her, she made me feel like it was the most precious gift she’d ever received.
This year will be my seventh Mother’s Day without her. The first year was the hardest. I hated going into the grocery store and seeing the buckets of roses and specially wrapped bouquets with big signs around them proclaiming the upcoming day. I alternated between jealousy of those who still had a mom to spoil and the sadness of realizing she was gone.
You know that saying about time healing all wounds? It’s not entirely true, but I can say that I am grateful to have had such a good mom and to remember her for all she gave to me. She was a first-grade teacher who was proud that she taught hundreds of kids how to read. She read books to my sister and me every night before bed. I don’t remember learning how to read, it just happened by osmosis, I think.
I’m grateful to her for making it so easy and instilling a love of reading in me. I was that kid who would beg for just a few more minutes to finish the chapter of whatever book I was reading before going to bed. “How many more pages?” she would ask in the doorway of my bedroom, and I’d rifle through the pages and count to the end of the chapter. “Four,” I’d say, and then she’d smile and say, “Okay, just four more,” knowing I’d sneak in another chapter before she checked in again to flip the switch off and kiss me goodnight.
Mom was my biggest cheerleader, even during those awkward teenage years when I figured she was just saying I was smart and pretty and strong because she was required to say that as my mother. But I always knew she loved me, which made a difference on the worst of those high school days.
I’ve been running with an older crowd since I moved to Prescott. This is okay with me. In Minnesota, I was solidly in the middle of the pack with friends who were becoming grandparents and friends getting their little ones off to kindergarten. Now that I live here, I realize I have friends in their 80s, and 90s, and one who just turned 100 last month.
A couple of Sundays ago, I had the chance to pick up three of my octogenarian friends and take them to the Hassayampa Inn for their monthly High Tea event. One thing I appreciate about my older friends: they are prompt! When we agree on a time to meet, they are ready and waiting at the front door of their senior apartment building.
We settled in around the table, catching up on life since the pandemic lockdown, drinking tea and eating tiny, fancy sandwiches. And though their children are even older than me, the stories they shared – about a son’s new job or a trip their daughter is taking – reminded me that even though 40 years may have passed since they were raising their children, the job of being a mother never ends.
While my mom wasn’t at the table, she was with me in my heart, and in the hearts of these women who love their children and grandchildren as much as my mom loved her children and grandchildren.
It reminded me of how much we all have in common, no matter what year we were born