I’m having a hard time imagining any job more difficult than being a mom.
I come by this knowledge honestly. I have a mom (I know; so unique!) but have also watched in amazement as my wife parented and taught our two young kids over the last 14 months. During that time, her love and care became my kids’ connection to humanity, given that we decided to home-school for health reasons.
Thankless physical labor and constant care of our utterly dependent children was only one of my wife’s duties. Others included emotional care of her siblings, parents and me, which I always benefited from but didn’t always reciprocate, and maintaining her own mental health. After the last year, I hope everyone reading this can realize how difficult that was.
My mom, Mary, on the other hand, had just retired a few weeks before the pandemic hit. I flew out to my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, in late February 2020 with my sisters to surprise her. We took walks, reminisced over pizza and salads, laughed at corny movies and TV shows, and otherwise re-bonded before a global pandemic began that none of us could have foreseen. (Although, even in late February 2020, I was iffy about traveling after the dark news from Italy.)
My stepmom, Janet, who I love dearly and respect the hell out of (having inherited a trio of children when marrying my late dad), also deserves props on this most meaningful of Mother’s Days. She’s also in Ohio, and still working. My mom, however, had retired with dreams of visiting her scattered children — in North Carolina, Florida and Colorado — only to find herself essentially locked in her house for the past year.
The idea of seeing, and hugging, my mom again is surreal. She has a plane ticket to visit my family in late May — not long after Sunday’s celebration of all-things-motherly — and the timing means something. I’ve tried not to take Mother’s Day for granted in the past. But I’m sure I have.
No longer.
My mom is a model of resilience, having put herself through school to finish her bachelor’s degree after a divorce, and forged a design and sales career out of late nights and constant dedication. I was a snotty teenager (I know; how unique!) and there have been times when I’ve gone weeks without talking to her. But the pandemic brought us closer, even if not physically, and I could hear the pain in her voice from the enforced distance between her, her children and her grandchildren.
Lots of people will be taking Mother’s Day 2021 more seriously than in the past. But the timing — coming out a pandemic, and not seeing my own mom for more than a year — renders it near-holy for me (and not just because we all come from Irish-Catholic stock). There’s a crowd of emotions beating down the doors in my mind, ready to swarm her when she gets here to take more walks, eat more pizzas and salads, and laugh at more corny movies.
And I know she’ll be able to withstand it, because that’s what she’s been doing my entire life. There are plenty of Hallmark holidays. But Mother’s Day isn’t, has never been, and will never be one of those. If we weren’t all celebrating the strong women in our lives before the pandemic, now is an excellent time to start.
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