Mother's Day

Two of my daughter’s sons, my grandsons, graduate this month.  After six years, Doug completed his electrical engineering degree from Southern Illinois University.  His youngest brother, Joseph, graduates from high school in Naperville, Illinois.  

Because of dialysis, I could not go to either graduation.  Also due to dialysis, I don’t have time for shopping.  It was not until yesterday that I drove to the closest strip mall to buy cards to send to the young men.  Where I expected to find the Hallmark shop, blank windows held a “For Lease” sign.  Politicians talk about saving “small businesses”, yet everywhere the big chains are taking over. 

So I went next door to the Tom Thumb, part of the international Safeway chain.  (I have a photo of one in England.)  I found the graduation and Mother’s Day cards.  After selecting my cards, I lingered in the front of the store where dozens of glass vases, big and small, were filled with flowers, offered as gifts to take to Mom on Mother’s Day.  Florists, like card shops, seem to be replaced by super markets.  I was attracted to a tall arrangement of roses, then horrified by the price tag.  Would someone pay $50 for flowers from the grocery store?  After that, $20 for a pot of tulips didn’t seem so extravagant.

Would anybody send me flowers for Mother’s Day?  Not likely.  My children came to see me for my birthday in March, expensive trips, Martha coming from Chicago and David flying in from California.   David gave me a Kindle, and Martha bought a whole flat of begonias, and, best of all, planted them for me in flower boxes on my patio. 

I couldn’t expect more than that. 

Alone on Mother’s Day, I went down to lunch.  The dining room was half-empty. I discovered several who were as flower-less and gift-less as I am.  Jean’s daughter came from Virginia for a week and started home yesterday.  Sue’s son, here a couple of week’s ago, has gone home to Oregon.  Lola’s daughter and her husband are away on a cruise.  While other mothers were taken out to dine with families, we who were left alone joined together and found things to laugh about.

Then Vista came by, pushing her walker and greeting everyone cheerfully.  She wished me, “Happy Mother’s Day.”   I felt chastened.  Vista lost her son, her only child, when he was 20 years old.  She has no one.  No other son to move away and spend holidays with his wife’s family.  She will never have grandchildren. 

Lucky me!  My five grandchildren all live far away.  I don’t see them often.  But they are there.  Doug cared enough that, instead of spending his spring break at the beach with the other college kids, he came to Texas and spent a week with Grandma.  Lucky me!

Wherever you are and whatever your circumstances, I hope you counted your blessings and gave yourself a Happy Mother’s Day.