It's funny how there is National Pet Week, National Dog Week, National Public Health Week, Deaf Awareness Week and even School Library Month, yet still today, in 2016, mothers only get their one pathetic day. Oh well. Anyway, years ago when my son was a toddler, we read a book together about Mother's Day. The story revolved around Elmo from Sesame Street, or maybe it was Bert or Ernie, or Oscar the Grouch -- one of those guys. (Or maybe none of them, after all memory fades and it wasn't exactly a Pulitzer-prize winner.) Throughout the book the kid frets over what to get his mother as a gift, and at the end she says she doesn't need a gift because, "You are my gift!"
I used to feel that way too. Every year I told my son, when he asked what he should get me for my special day, "Nothing, you are my gift!" Well guess what -- now he's twenty-eight and I no longer feel that way. Now I do want something from him, in fact there's quite a long list, and one that is likely shared by all mothers everywhere:
1. Find joy or at least satisfaction in your work or art.
2. Maintain friendships only with people who have your best interests at heart.
3. Choose a partner who sees you as the sun, moon and stars all in one brilliant, fantastic package.
4. Have faith in yourself and in something outside yourself to get you through the tough times.
5. Greet each new day as something glorious, without yesterday's disappointments dragging it down.
6. Count your blessings.
So, that's what I want this year. Not all of it, understand, just one or maybe two things from that list. That will make my day. That and a Jaguar. (The one shown above is used and under $2,000!)
I used to feel that way too. Every year I told my son, when he asked what he should get me for my special day, "Nothing, you are my gift!" Well guess what -- now he's twenty-eight and I no longer feel that way. Now I do want something from him, in fact there's quite a long list, and one that is likely shared by all mothers everywhere:
1. Find joy or at least satisfaction in your work or art.
2. Maintain friendships only with people who have your best interests at heart.
3. Choose a partner who sees you as the sun, moon and stars all in one brilliant, fantastic package.
4. Have faith in yourself and in something outside yourself to get you through the tough times.
5. Greet each new day as something glorious, without yesterday's disappointments dragging it down.
6. Count your blessings.
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