I was in line at the store the other day, when I heard the checkout girl ask the woman ahead of me if she was a mother, and when told yes, wished her a happy Mother’s Day. While she was ringing out my groceries, she was talking to another clerk (who could have been bagging my stuff, now that I think about it!) about how she had to work on Mother’s Day but couldn’t use her usual daycare provider because the daycare provider had family plans that day. The checker looked to be about 18 years old, and she was just obviously head-over-heels in love with her baby…3 months old. She was telling how he was going to be having his first spoonfuls of baby food on Mother’s Day…she was going to take herself out to eat, and put him in a high chair, and feed him his first baby food and make it a big event.
And then she said how she had bought herself a Mother’s Day card, and a little box of candy, and she was going to give it to herself on Sunday from the baby.
She had such a sweet dispositon, and seemed so happy, but my heart just broke. I wondered if she really expected to have no other recognition of her first Mother’s Day from anyone else…not her family, nor the baby’s dad. She really didn’t give a hint that she had any other support system. Now I shouldn’t assume that just from a three minute overheard conversation, and believe me, I know that a Mother’s Day card isn’t the be-all and end-all of someone’s life…but I really wanted to go back and buy her a card myself. Such a hard thing, to be so young and so alone, responsible for a whole 'nother person. I really hope the impression I got of her being on her own through this was wrong.
So what tug have you had to your heartstrings this Mother’s Day weekend?
And by the way, I sell gifts to people, and so many times I hear stories of the demands their mothers have for a certain level of gift, certain amount of attention that day, restaurant, card, candy, flowers, jewelry of a certain caliber…we don’t roll that way in my family, so I am always amused by such tales.
My stepson and I had a bit of a rocky start. He was 16 when his dad and I met and started dating. His mom had been out of the picture for 9 or 10 years- she just got tired of being married and left the two of them. He had some contact with her- saw her at Xmas almost every year, got a card from her on his birthday- and he harbored the same fantasy most kids of divorce do, that they would get back together someday. His dad dated a little, but didn’t get serious enough to talk marriage about anyone 'til I came along. He was not thrilled at first, and made it clear that I couldn’t take his mom’s place. We worked through it, and wound up having a great relationship (the fact that he was 16 and I drove a Miata at the time probably didn’t hurt).
A couple of years ago, he moved to New York to go to film school the last time he talked to his mom was before he moved). He's now 28, and we either talk or e-mail a couple of times a week. Yesterday, I got the Top Chef Cookbook from him. I love to cook, and I love Top Chef. It was the perfect gift.
But, that's not the heartstring-tugging part. I e-mailed him to thank him, and I got the sweetest e-mail ever back from him. He told me how much he appreciates everything I've done for him over the years, and that he knew it wasn't always easy but that I've always been there for him and that it made a huge difference in his life to have, in his words, "a real mom". I tried to read the e-mail to my husband, but was crying so hard I couldn't.
The three of us have certainly had our ups and downs, and I imagine that we will continue to. But it'll be awfully hard to top this particular "up".
My heartstrings were tugged, katie1341. Wow.
My stepson was standoffish as well, katie. Poor boy, his mom had died about a year or so before Hubby and I married. He had a bad year or two on account of that, then joined the Marine Corps and soon was in Iraq. While he was deployed he began to have a turn-around in his attitude towards me.
One day he called home and was talking to me and said the sweetest thing. He said he had been in a conversation with his Sgt., and was telling the Sgt. about some advice-or-other I had given him. The Sgt. remarked that it sounded like pretty good advice, that I sounded like a wise mom. Son told him “A lot of people don’t have even one good mom. I’m so lucky that I’ve had two of the best”.
oh, Katie, I am sobbing right now…how very sweet.
O, and now that i read NinetyWt’s post…I’m sobbing double…
kittenblue, if I were you I would get that girl a nice card and a little something.
