My problem with Mother’s Day is more or less the fact that your mother should know how you feel about her without having a day dedicated to reminding her of how rotten you are as a son or daughter during the rest of the year.
On the bright side, Mother’s Day is a neat way to show that you aren’t that bad a child.
My mother is turning 80 years old next year and I think that’s pretty good for someone who has had such a rich, full life filled with both pain and joy. She survived the Nazi invasion of France, fell in love and married my father and then took care of him for 26 years after he suffered a near-fatal heart attack at age 49. She has two sons and a raft of grandchildren who love her dearly.
How she ever married my father still amazes me. He tried to commit romantic suicide by throwing orange rind over his head in a cafeteria at the University of Berkeley. The rind landed on my mother’s lap and yet he was still able to convince her to marry him. With several suitors vying for her attention, he was one lucky guy.
The tapestry of events that shaped my mother makes for pretty good reading. As a young, Jewish child born in Paris, my mother and her sister hid with a Catholic family in order to survive WWII. The chance that a three year old would make a mistake making the sign of the cross and get two families killed terrified everyone, but her.
After moving to California following the war, my mother quickly showed a love for knowledge and embraced her new country. She radiated intelligence, beauty and a love for all people. She embarked on a lifetime of teaching her love of languages. She wanted to show how words could bring humanity together, rather than tear us apart. To this day, she still substitute teaches. Put my mother in a classroom and watch her go to work. She loves kids, and she still gets on the ground with my two children.
My mother finds beauty, kindness and love in everyone’s story. Everyone is her friend.
The story here is not how much love and respect I have for my mother, but how much love she has for everyone else. She still doles out more kindness and concern than anyone I’ve ever met. Charitable, loving, caring. She gives more then she could ever reasonably hope to get back from any friends or family.
So, during this day, I say, “To hell with Mother’s Day.” I’ve got something better for all of you out there: Happy “My Mother is Your Friend Day.”