March 29, 2024

The importance (to me) of Mother’s Day

No one reading this should need me to tell them the importance of the holiday. However, if you were like me when you were growing up, you probably do.

Mother’s Day is often times brushed off as another commercial holiday. It’s a time to go out and buy a Hallmark card and a small gift for your mother. You might even get flowers, if you’re feeling giving.

As a child, this is how I always treated the holiday. My mother would be lucky if she got a personal message longer than 10 words in a card.

She never complained, never once batted an eyelash at my cheap and impersonal gift or even the lack of one on some years. She took it all in stride with the remarkable amount of willpower and selflessness reserved only for mothers.

Now, looking back, I am able to fully appreciate the true breadth and scope of my mother’s efforts while she was raising me. I have the deepest respect for her years of doing double shifts, one at work and then the next at home. I fully acknowledge that without her extreme dedication to my well-being, I wouldn’t be half the man that I am today.

When you are celebrating Mother’s Day this weekend, be sure to inject your own personal touches into the holiday. Cook a meal, scrap the store-bought cards for the year and write a letter on some nice stationary, think about her hobbies and get her something she’ll really enjoy.

No matter what, don’t buy a kitchen utensil or any other ‘domestic tool’.

You really don’t need to spend much money to make it a meaningful day. In fact, if you are a young person, your mother probably understands that you can’t.

All you need to do is be thoughtful, acknowledge the incredible role that your mother has had on your life, and dole out love and respect to reciprocate the treatment you have received from her.

As I said, many of you didn’t need this reminder. For those of you that did, it is never too late to start celebrating mother’s day the way that you should, and to use these methods of appreciation on a daily basis rather than just once a year.

I’ll close this with a personal message: I love you mom, for going above and beyond for 22 years and for loving me unconditionally through the good times and the bad. I only hope that I can repay you even a fraction of the love and respect in the years to come.