Mine wasn’t a happy family. My angry, volatile father tyrannized us, and my mother was depressed most of the time. Yet Mother’s Day was important to us, a day in which we could honor my mother without sarcasm or cruelty, both of which permeated our household. Out of construction paper, I made her homemade cards, and with my allowance money, bought her inexpensive perfume or face lotion.
I didn’t think much about the gifts. I just went to the local pharmacy and pulled them off the shelves. My mother was always very grateful, although I felt detached from her at the moment of gift giving: yes, she was my mother; yes, I loved her; but no – I couldn’t fully give myself over to celebrating her. Things were just too grim in our home.
When I grew up and got married, my husband and I dutifully visited my parents each Mother’s Day. My cards for her were store bought by then, no longer hand made, and my gifts to her tended to remain the same: perfume and lotion. I didn’t make them personal or meaningful. In fact, I was making a statement: She and I weren’t close.
After my father died, my husband and I celebrated Mother’s Day by having brunch out with a group consisting of my widowed mother, my husband’s mother, father, brother, and his brother’s wife, as well as his wife’s mother. My mother didn’t fit in with the other mothers at the table. They dressed glamorously in suits and high heels, their hair dyed and perfectly coifed, their faces carefully made up. My mother, who had less money than they, did her best: She wore the same blazer every year, and a fake pearl necklace. But her hair was grey, her only make up was pale lipstick, and her jacket and pants were years out of style.
At those brunches, I found myself feeling protective of her. I didn’t want her to feel out of place or “lesser” than the other mothers. I was beginning to value some things about her that I never had valued before: her honesty, her open mindedness towards other people, her hard work.
By then, I had figured out two things that made her happier than perfume and hand lotion: music boxes and fabric purses. It was easy for me to find them, and although the gifts were more personal, I still didn’t give them a lot of thought. If I came across a music box or a woven purse in a catalog or at a store, and if it was reasonably priced, I bought it.
When I became a mother and began bringing my daughter to the Mother’s Day brunches, I made sure that she and my mother were seated together because my daughter made my mother immeasurably happy, and by then I wanted that for her.
I began taking more care with my gifts to her, making sure the music box played a song that she loved, and that the purse had a beautiful pattern. And for the first time, I began receiving my own Mother’s Day gifts. My daughter drew me cards, and made bracelets and necklaces in my favorite colors lovingly constructed from string and beads.
For the first time I wondered how much it would have meant to my mother if my gifts to her had been made as lovingly as my daughter’s were to me.
After my mother died, to my surprise, I acutely missed her, especially on Mother’s Day. I missed being on the lookout for music boxes and purses. I missed seeing her and my daughter sitting side by side, happily playing together.
As my daughter grows older, her gifts to me continue to be meaningful. She gives me eye shadow and lipstick in the exact shades she knows I wear, and silver earrings by my favorite jewelry designer. She gives me biographies of strong women to read because she knows I love to read about the lives of inspiring women. I’m grateful that she sees me as an individual, and not some generic mom. I had to learn to see my mother that way and it didn’t happen until I was much older. I wish for my mother’s sake – and my own — it had happened earlier.
Janice Eidus is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Twice winner of the O.Henry Prize and a Pushcart Prize, she’s published the novels, The War of the Rosens, The Last Jewish Virgin, Urban Bliss, and Faithful Rebecca. Her story collections include The Celibacy Club and Vito Loves Geraldine. Her work appears in such magazines as The New York Times and Lilith. She publishes regularly in www.purpleclover.com. She has lived in The Virgin Islands and Mexico, and currently lives in New York City .(www.janiceeidus.com)