Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother’s Day. My kids took me and their stepdad to dinner the night before the official Mother’s Day, at one of their favourite Toronto restaurants and they gave me the lovely roses you see pictured here. I’m grateful for their presence in our lives and I imagine that as I grow older, that feeling will only increase.

It was nice of them to acknowledge Mother’s Day in the way they did, but I already felt well and truly feted a few weeks ago, when they came to help us put up a garden shed. We couldn’t have done it without their help and the kind of fun we had together reminded me of the best days of their years of growing up. Lots of banter, conversation, laughter, and a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’. (Adding a daughter-in law, my dad, and my sister and her husband to the mix resulted somehow in a multiplication of the fun and good feelings.)

Often when any of us get together, we just eat and talk. The food’s always great and the conversation lively – and some of us sometimes walk in the woods nearby and that’s good too. But there was something about our actually doing something together that will make that day of the shed-building stand out among happy memories – for me and for them, I think. And maybe this will influence some of our future plans for getting together.

Thanks to my kids for remembering me on Mother’s Day and not just on Mother’s Day. Thanks to them also for being people I’m proud of and happy to spend time with, whatever we might be doing when we get together.