First of all, happy Mothers Day to all the mums out there. Whilst the cynic in me sees this as an opportunity for retailers to make a fast buck (see also Christmas, Easter, Fathers Day, Valentines Day etc etc), I think it’s a nice thing to celebrate what our mothers have done for us. My own mother died in 1999, so my memories, whilst they don’t fade, have become a little distant. For me, while it is important to remember her, I don’t spend a great deal of time getting all mournful and over-sentimental on days like this. I have my memories, good and bad, happy and sad, and I know what she did for me and I also know how illness all but ruined the last decade or so of her life. My memories are more of the ‘what if’ variety. What if she hadn’t continued to smoke when doctors and surgeons warned her of the awful consequences that all came true? I’ll never know, but I know she would have had a better and longer retirement if tobacco had not taken its deadly hold.
A day like Mothers Day is an intensely personal thing too. We are all different, aren’t we, and I am certainly not going to be critical of those who visit the graves of their relatives for whatever reason they choose. I would imagine there is great comfort in so doing for some people, others may raise a glass. And if you like to share your love of your mother, dead or alive, on social networks, that’s great too. I like to read it all but if others don’t then they’re under no obligation to do so.
As in so many other things, Mothers Day began in America and the spread throughout the world. Of all the things they have given us, Mothers Day I would contend is right up there with the McDonalds Double Sausage and Egg McMuffin and Jack Daniels. I would not necessarily put them in any particular order although I suspect my own mother would have put it some way below Jack Daniels (other whiskies are available). Nowadays, Mothers Day is celebrated worldwide, albeit in very different days. If you are feeling particularly generous, you can rush your mother around the world and she will be able to celebrate Mothers Day somewhere or other virtually all year round.
And if you can’t celebrate your own mother, what can you celebrate? Unlike Christmas and Easter, you are at least celebrating someone you can be sure existed!
So have a great day mums, all over the land. I hope you get a lie in, a nice card, perhaps a few chocolates and naturally a glass of something fizzy. But one aspect is far more important than the others: I still want you to prepare the Sunday lunch. You’re so much better at it than anyone else in the family!
1 comment
Mother’s Day is American however what we have come to know as Mother’s Day in the UK originated from Refreshment Sunday when there was a break in Lent and people in service returned home to visit their family and also the ‘Mother Church’. Over the years it has become more and more commercialised and less to do with the church.
France have ‘ Mother’s Day’ but I believe it is in May.
The American Mother’s Day I believe is on a different day of the year and it’s original intent was to show gratitude to mothers and then became increasingly commercialised.
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