Mother’s Day … I wonder?

I’ve been in two minds whether to blog about this. Truth be told, I’m still not sure so I’m typing word by word with no idea if I’ll hit publish at the end of this or not.

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand recently, you couldn’t have missed the fact that it’s Mothering Sunday this coming Sunday.

The history of Mothering Sunday is believed to have religious roots.  Most Sundays in the year churchgoers would worship at their nearest parish or “daughter church”. In Victorian times it was considered important for people to return to their home or “mother” church at least once a year, which was commonly thought to be the nearest Cathedral. So each year on the fourth Sunday of Lent, everyone would visit their “mother” church. The return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family reunions when children who were in service away from home returned. The majority of historians think that it was this return to the “Mother” church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

Of course, nowadays, much like Valentine’s day, it’s largely a commercial holiday with retailers telling us to buy everything from hand sanitising lotion (thanks for the heads up on that one Amber) to fossils and every last thing in between as a token of our appreciation for our parents. Turn into the local stationers and you’re bombarded with saccharine sweet cards declaring our love for our Mothers. And most people I know will be buying one with a gift for their mothers and doing something special this Sunday.

I won’t be.

You see, while most of the people I know are pretend moaning about buying cards and presents for their Mums but secretly thinking it’s kind of sweet, I can’t do that. And every time I hear someone talking about what they’ll be doing with their Mums, my heart lurches a little bit, because I know it’s unlikely that I will be able to do that, and that Mothers day, for me, is likely to be the same non-event that it has been for a decade or so.

You see, my Mum suffers from a mental disability. An addiction that led her to make a choice between me and another big love in her life and in my youthful, hot-headed way a number of years ago I decided that I couldn’t spend my life playing second fiddle to her addictions. It’s not a choice I regret but it makes me feel a little sad and a little wistful knowing that while other sons and daughters are celebrating what their parents have done and have sacrificed to give them a decent start in life, my Mum wouldn’t do that. That I wasn’t reason enough to battle for and  to know I will never be able to celebrate her in that way. While it was my choice to walk away from it and chose to live my own life, it’s a twist of the knife to know that I had to make that choice, to know that I couldn’t have my own life and a loving mother, and to know that I will never be able to join in the celebrations.

I won’t rant about how wrong it is to celebrate Mother’s day just because a minority of us can’t do so. It’s a day to celebrate your Mother (and historically your family) and that’s a joyful thing. So I say go wild. Remember every damned thing your Mother has ever done to make you happy and then mutiply it by 10, because that’s probably closer to the truth. Forget the arguments, the niggles and the tiny things that annoy you about your Mum … because they don’t matter. Imagine what it would be like to spend every single day for the rest of your life without her … and the emotional devatation you can imagine is the the mirror to how much you really love her. Hold onto those thoughts and when you see your Mum on Sunday, don’t just give her a bunch of flowers and a hug … TELL HER how much you lover her, how much you appreciate her and how much she’s one of the best things in your life. Don’t let her go without knowing all the things you love about her from the way she smells to the way she dances when she thinks no-one’s watching .

But being in the situation I am, makes me consider other people, who through no choice of their own don’t have a Mother with whom they can celebrate either. People who’ve lost their family through any kind of tragedy. Being subjected to the endless barage of advertising is going to hurt  as much as the knowledge that the day is one that we are now and will forever be excluded from that special relationship and celebration. So as you consider your maternal relationships on Sunday and spend a little time with the ones you love, just spare a little thought for those of us who won’t be.