Moms recognized only one day

The Boston Herald 

I bought her bright blue stretch pants and a bright blue flowered blouse to match. My mother never wore stretch pants. Still, she put them on and left the house.

'How come you don't wear your new outfit to work, Mom?'

'It's too nice for work,' she told me.

She was a diplomat, always tiptoeing around my feelings. I was 14. I'd spent every penny of my baby-sitting money on an ugly gift for her. But it wasn't until years later, when I brought up the subject, that my mother and I laughed at how hideous the outfit really was.

I bought her a pearl ring, though I knew she was superstitious and believed that pearls brought tears. She cried when she saw it. And wore it anyway.

I bought her a silver and crystal bowl that, of course, required polishing. My mother wasn't into silver. It was too high maintenance. But she polished this thing regularly and placed it in the center of the table at every holiday meal. That's what mothers do. They smile and gush over bowls and jewelry and clothes they wouldn't even glance at in the mall. They pretend they love Jean Nate because they love the person who bought it for them.

The whole ruse starts out innocently enough. A child colors a picture or traces his hand or pens a little rhyme or copies one ('millions of stars in the heavens above, only one mother to cherish and love') and a mother smiles and cries because she knows it doesn't get better than this.

And it doesn't. Heart gifts are the best. 'Dear Mom, I'm glad you're my mother. I love you on Mother's Day and every day. Your son, Robert.' Mothers everywhere cherish and save these notes. They're what we want. They're what we seek simple, unself-conscious love.

For it isn't things that mothers want on Mother's Day. What mothers want is to be appreciated every day. It's a cliche but it's true. Don't buy me anything. Just clean your room. Just do well in school. Just stay out of trouble. Just pick up the phone and call me for no reason at all. Just think of me not because you have to but because you want to.

We make such a big deal about honoring mothers on this one Sunday in May. We buy mom flowers; we take her to lunch; we listen to her. And this is fine. The holiday at least makes us pause and do things we wouldn't normally do.

But that's the rub. Why wouldn't we? Why does it take an occasion to make us pay attention to the person who paid us the most attention?

You watch what a mother does. You go to the mall and you see them there, pushing one baby and hanging on to another, constantly attending, noticing, juggling. Or you sit in church and wonder at how a mother teaches, even without words, how she silences with a look, instructs with a touch.

You notice them at the grocery store, at the library, on the subway, in restaurants, everywhere, always putting their children first. Are you hungry? Cold? Tired? Do you want to sit here? Do you want ketchup? Would you like to do that? Mothers can't make a plan - they can't visit a friend, watch a movie, relax at a beach, they can't even go to work without thinking of their children first.

And then the children grow up and so seldom think of them. My grandmother had four children, two daughters and two sons. The sons moved away, never visited and seldom called. But every Mother's Day they sent flowers. The flowers meant so much to my grandmother. They meant that her sons hadn't forgotten her. My grandmother was a hard person to love. Her sons, I'm sure, had reasons for keeping their distance. Still, she was their mother. She'd cooked for them and washed their clothes and made their beds and nursed them when they were sick and loved them as best she knew how. She did all she was able to do. But they wanted more. All children do. All children want the perfect mother. But the perfect mother exists only in a child's mind.

Most mothers simply do the best they can. They give us years of days and we give them back one day a year.