Last Sunday was Mother’s Day
here in North America. I specify the location, because I know that in the United
Kingdom the occasion is also celebrated, but quite a bit earlier—this year, it
was on March 11th.
When I was a child, I didn’t
always have any money to buy my mother something for Mother’s Day. I usually
made the card for her, although once in a while, I bought one. Sometimes I
managed to get Mother a fancy tea cup and saucer set (they had them at our local
Kresge’s store, and at a very affordable price). Those times I couldn’t buy her
one of those cups, I would go out to the garden and pick her a bouquet of her
own flowers. She always claimed that as long as she was “remembered”—that meant
a card when I lived with her, and at least a phone call but preferably a visit
once I was older and out of the house, she was happy.
One of the biggest sins a child
could commit in my mother’s eyes (and here the word child refers to adult
children) was forgetting either Mother’s Day, or her birthday. I’m sad to say
that one birthday did go by without my calling her, or even remembering the day.
All these years later, I don’t remember the circumstances, only the result. I
think I was more upset about my transgression than she was.
I find, as I get older, there
are some ways that I’m becoming more and more like my mother. And this stance of
“you don’t have to buy me anything, just remember me” is one of those ways.
Flowers and cards are lovely—I have a drawer full of cards that I’ve been given
over the years as I never throw them away—but the time my kids spend with me,
either on the phone or in person, is truly the best gift of all.
This past Mother’s Day, my son
Christopher and daughter Jennifer both came to visit me, as did my “second
daughter”, Sonja. I enjoyed visiting with my son and his wife in the morning,
and the girls in the afternoon. They all brought cards and hanging baskets of
flowers for the porch. My great-granddaughter, when she visited the next day
with her nanny, picked me a tulip from my own garden. I considered myself very
blessed just for all those visits alone.
You can be sure, I cherish that
tulip, even more than those lovely hanging baskets.
The traditions we honor in our
families are important. They form the legacy that we, through our observance of
them, hand down to the next generation. My parents have been gone many years
now, and yet some of the things they did for us and the way in which they did
them, found expression in my own family as I was raising my kids. For example,
all of my kids got giant oranges in their stockings for Christmas, as
did their children—and as did I, when I was little.
That’s not to say the
traditions we pass down mean the same now as they did then. These days, large
oranges in December are not such a luxury as once they were. There were
Christmas mornings when we wanted to eat those oranges first, before even the
candy and the wonderful full breakfasts our mother made. Those big oranges were
juicy and sweet, and we didn’t even have to share them!
I hope those of you who are
mothers were blessed to spend time with your children last Sunday. And I hope
the traditions you’re building in your families blossom into loving
legacies.
They’re a true and beautiful
way to keep those long gone from this earth, close to your heart, and a way for
your children and grandchildren to remember you.
Love,
Morgan
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