Simple Mother's Day

A title with a double meaning. . . unintentionally.  My plan was to do a quick post on the simple Mother's Day I had yesterday.  Because we don't do big stuff for that day (or Father's Day either); no trips to grandiose dining establishments, no extravagant gifts, no huge get-togethers.  It's more the simple ways to say "I Love You, Mom"--phone calls from my boys who live far away, blueberry pancakes made from scratch by DD2 who set her alarm for 6 a.m. so she could cook and serve me breakfast before we went to church, oven fried chicken with baked sweet potatoes for dinner cooked by DD1.  DH and I each  made phone calls to our own mothers and listened to them talk about whatever was on their minds for an hour (and neither he nor I are big into talking on the phone. . .)

But after I typed the title of this post, it struck me that the things that made my Mother's Day special, the simple joys of life, probably wouldn't be appreciated by many women in today's society.  No, only the simple women, the simple mothers, would feel that a phone call was a gift, that some slightly less than perfect pancakes and sweet potatoes that took longer to bake than planned, were special things that say "I Love You".  This simple mother saw those things for the testaments of love and appreciation they were intended to be.  My children giving of themselves, as I taught them to do, rather than impersonally throwing money at some gift of the latest fad and bestowing it on me whether it was in my tastes or not.

I'd like to share with you a poem DD2 wrote and gave to me yesterday at breakfast, along with my blueberry pancakes (and homemade maple syrup warmed up, the way I prefer to eat it).

They say a picture's worth a thousand words,
And a friend a million bucks--
But there's someone I know who's worth quite more.
Her smile brightens up the day.
Her laugh makes it all worthwhile,
Sometimes she sings off-key,
Or maybe gets it right,
Her tear means pain unspoken,
Her heart is pure gold,
She's beautiful,
She's smart,
She's kind,
Sometimes we fight,
Sometimes we argue,
Sometimes we yell,
Sometimes we scream,
But she's the best, I'll always say,
A mom's a gift, and mine's better than 'em all.

Yeah, I cried.  And in my defense, may I say she's 14 and does most of the yelling, arguing, and screaming, not me!  But she's coming along.  I see the selfish middle-school child maturing as she finishes her first year of high school; I see the indications that she's becoming a young lady who will be quite a gift to her own children some day.  And to have children like that, who will, in their turns, be good spouses and parents, is the best gift a mother can ever receive.