Today is Mother’s Day. I have a card and a modest present for my mother and we’ll have lunch later this afternoon.
Friday, I went to the funeral of a mother of my friend, Suz.
I do family law. Almost all of my files are filled with the good and bad of mothers.
We do not get the mothers we want and deserve anymore than they get the children they long for.
One of my present cases involves a mother with felony convictions for child abuse and neglect.
We look for our soulmates — we look for the perfect person with whom to plight our troth (marry). Perfect people don’t exist.
Neither do perfect mothers.
Our mothers are human, and therefore flawed.
They make decisions on the fly and in the midst of pressures of their own that we cannot comprehend as children.
Then, we remember that we don’t like those decisions and hold those grudges for the rest of our lives.
We mix up our notions of the perfect, nuturing, loving storybook creatures of archetype with the real, working people who get tired and angry and confused and stressed out.
Sometimes we throw in our self loathing or our culturally inspired misogyny.
We expect our mothers to forgive us everything while we feel self righteous about forgiving nothing.
Except for this day, when we gin up all our Hollywood inspired expectations and gush over them in embarrassing ways.
My own mother is such a remarkable woman. Flawed, yes, but a magnificent woman nevertheless.
I am so grateful for her still-sharp mind and tireless health.
I’ve finally become enough of a grown up and less of a child around her to appreciate her.
Yes, I love my Mom, but I think it’s all the more important that she’s my friend. We’ve found a way to disagree as friends do and to forgive as friends do. It’s a priceless part of my life.
My children have their mother and today’s her day and not mine for them. Their mother is no longer my wife, but she will always be their mother. God bless her. I hope my children know that their mother loves them. I can say that with no qualifications and I know it’s true in the deepness of my heart and all the way down to the bones. My ex-wife is also a magnificent woman, flawed as she may be. While raising our children, we made our share of less than perfect decisions, but the proof is in the pudding and we raised two wonderful adults. I pray my children honor their mother today and feel sure that they will and do.
Men often have the luxury of growing older, but not growing up. Mothers, on the other hand, have very little choice but to grow up when that flopping piece of bloody protoplasm is dumped on their sheeted bellies in the delivery room. God did well to hardwire mothers to love those needy little bastards, or we’d kill and eat them before slogging through their adolescence.
And, so, children, if your mother allowed you to live to this good day, pick up the freakin’ phone and give the bitch a call. No matter that she stole your childhood and made you clean your room and stopped you from wearing that god-awful outfit to school. For just one day put aside the fact that she was right all along about your wretched first spouse. Temper your fury at being made to wait until the advanced age of 16 to have your first car date with mercy and forgiveness that comes with the experience of having your own oppositional and rude child.
And, remember, we do this in the name of Hallmark and the American Restaurant Association.
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