Mother's Day

A Hallmark Holiday?

Not really, Mothering Sunday falls on the 4th Sunday in Lent. In medieval times it was devised so that people working for masters far from home, could go back to their mother church and visit their families, and their mothers using it as a holiday.

The American Mother's Day - the Hallmark Holiday came during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson and it's the second Sunday in May. 

I hardly think of myself as a mother now, yes I had some lovely times with my son when he was a child, but the badly drawn cards from nursery school, primary school, and secondary school ended when he went to Uni. When he told me "He didn't believe in Mother's Day".
I told him he better had - so go out and get me a card!

One year home from Uni he cooked a mother's day meal. He got quite flustered about getting it right, but he did me proud.

I used to buy my mother flowers and chocolates she loved Frys walnut whips, or the pink and white cocoanut ice. The three sisters would try and make it a happy day for her, because she was the first to come and comfort us if anything went wrong with our lives. She would stand up for us when Dad lost his temper if we spilt nail varnish or got home late.
When she died I was devastated, she was just coming up to 50.

I haven't seen my son or spoken to him by phone for nearly ten years now.  I get the sporadic e.mail but it's hardly a relationship. Half the time I don't have an address or phone number for him - I don't at the moment.

It's only because I know how to use the internet that I know what he's up to at all.

He says on the odd occasion that he still loves me, but it's a funny kind of love that won't show it's face.

I wish now I was like a lot of other 1980s mums, having affairs, leaving their kids to their own devices, neglecting him for having a life of my own. But I didn't. I tried to make every
day the best I could for him. Sometimes it was hard, his father made no contribution to his upbringing - and even cried once when I asked for money for a pair of shoes for his son.
But going to a bar with his mates and spending large amounts of money on drinks was ok.

I never bad mouthed his father to him.  He now has a relationship with him ringing him once a week.

So mother's day.  Another tearful day for me, when I see flowers and grown up children arrive to spend time with the woman who bore them and brought them up. Appreciating
the sacrifices they have made for them.

I wonder every year what I have done to be so punished.  Mother's day is a very cruel
holiday, not just for me, but for mother's who's sons have died. Heartbreaking.

I still love you Matthew Buxton - even though it really hurts.

Matt at age19 off to surf at St Ives with his mates & his own special high fiveing cat Samson