Thinking of Mother's Day makes me wonder about how widely this occasion is celebrated today compared, to say, 50 years ago. This line of thought was brought on by an interview I heard on the radio while commuting recently. The interview was about the downfall of religion in America starting during the Industrial Revolution and continuing with the urbanization of our country and the dissolution of the extended family. I'm guessing the occasions like Mother Day are in a similar decline for similar reasons.
I grew up in a small town and attended Sunday School and Church at the United Methodist Church every Sunday morning with my mother and sister.
On Mother's Day my mother always wore a white flower to church picked from our own flower garden. My sister and I wore red or pink which ever we had blooming at the time. My mother wore a white flower because it was a symbol that her Mother was no longing living but red was the symbol of a mother's presence. My mother always took this opportunity to talk about her own mother and she was "the sweetest woman in the world."
My Dad only went to church a couple of times a year and Mother's Day was one of them. At the church service there were real corsages for the youngest mother in the congregation, the oldest, and the one with the most children/grandchildren present. I knew my mother was never going to win any of those and I felt kind of bad for her in my own childlike way.
I can't remember ever buying her a gift as a child but my sister would help me make a card.
When we got home my Dad would do all the cooking which was his usual Sunday routine anyway. He had been a cook in his younger days so he liked cooking breakfast everyday and dinner on Sunday. He didn't mind washing dishes either.
My mother was an immaculate housekeeper, a good cook, a good listener, a good advisor, and sent three daughters to college on money she managed to save from my father's salary working for the BRI railroad.
She was quick to get a peach switch but always forgiving. I had a sharp tongue, a mind of my own, and a habit of slamming my bedroom door.
She was the only room mother for my junior high years. I remember that she came to my defense only once with a teacher. The teacher was my home economics teacher in junior high and this teacher was always commenting negatively on the the way I dressed.........not exactly an endearing quality for a teacher of a thirteen year old who had to wear the hand-me-downs of a sister seven years older. She accused me of telling her I didn't like her. Now that wasn't exactly true because she asked me. She said, "You don't like me do you?" And my answer was........you guessed it. So my mother told her, "Maybe it's better not to ask the question if you already know the answer!" I don't remember what grade I made in that class but I do remember that conversation.
In her final years my mother lived a few months in Houston with my family and then a few months in San Antonio with another daughter and her family. She never put herself first or tried to impose. She loved being able to be in the arms of those who loved her. She insisted on doing laundry and puttering around and always washing dishes. Upon her death, my 14 year-old reminisced by saying, "Who is going to be around to say, 'What can I do to help?'". So we had that placed upon her tombstone.
Families may have changed, religion may have changed, celebrations may also have changed. Being a mother can never change.
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