Mother’s Day was mostly just another day. My mother never let me attempt breakfast in bed. Chances are, she cooked breakfast for me. Mom’s right arm was never the same after the cancer, and her tendency to swing hot pans close to my head became a nervous running joke.
Mom did housework well until the end, but she never really cared about it. She had more conveniences in the 70s and 80s than I do now: dishwasher, microwave oven, laundry, cleaning lady. Our house was never a showpiece, unlike Aunt Joan’s, but it was clean. Clean enough, anyway.
Besides the card, all my mother really expected from Mother’s Day was to not have to cook, perhaps, and that her father wouldn’t wake her up by phoning during her nap. “Charlie” had no sense of time or frequency of calls near the end.
The nap would be a sound one, hopefully, with a few dogs on her, on the couch or beg, on dog beds surrounding her. I do that, too, but more with the cats. Somehow animals know that Mom and I will put up with intrusive companionship.
It’s hard not to feel sad on days like today. It’s not just that I miss Mom, and clearly never really got over it; it’s that I miss my family, even if in retrospect it seems more like the idea of a family.
It’s that weird adult sense that home is where I am, not a place to visit, and it’s the memories, of course – not of special occasions but everyday memories, the banal details of home and belonging that you never realize you’re going to miss so much.
