Mother's Day

Celebrating Roberta Hederian: (1941- 1998)

I remember dreading Mother's Day when my mother was alive. How do I properly thank someone who does everything for me, but receives so little in return? I felt like it was a holiday for brats- specifically placed on the calendar for daughters like me who took from their households- their mothers specifically, without really ever showing true appreciation. Life isn't built for showing appreciation. We've got things to do. We've got careers to begin and classes to take and people to hang out with. It's a holiday centered around guilt: Stop. Thank your mother.

For those who have lost their mothers (or at least for me) it feels like the day has been cancelled. We've received an eternal exemption. It's just another Sunday. Families everywhere are gathering around the matriarchs of their households to thank them for everything they do to keep the family functioning on a daily basis. They eat, perhaps give her gifts; it is short-lived, superficial and scheduled. I remember it well.

Everyone will go back to using, resenting and under-appreciating them tomorrow. I guess I'm still pretty bitter.

I'm in no-way about to imply that I was the perfect daughter. Quite the contrary, I do recall I was a royal pain in the ass. However, in the first few years after my mother passed away, I was keenly aware of other people's daily disregard of their mothers. I was super-sensitive when someone was fighting with their mom or was aggravated by her. My answer to these people was always, 'I'd love to be able to argue with my mother again.' Which isn't fair, really. It's just really mean to say and at the time, it would make me feel better.

What I should say to these people is to cherish the time you do have with your mom and know everything she does for you (unless she is in fact a psychopath) is probably what she thinks is best for you. The great paradox of motherhood is that as intrusive, controlling and annoying they may sometimes seem- they LOVE you- you're their child for Christ's sake. They want to protect you and hold you up on a pedestal even if it's the last place you want to be.

Some who are in my group, like Madonna, visit graves with flowers or cards, and say prayers where their mothers are buried. Apparently some even film themselves in music videos laying on the ground and kissing headstones. Not me. I don't enjoy going to the cemetery. I took great comfort in believing that my mother would be with me everywhere I went now that she's a spirit and not a living person. I still believe that, and therefore I don't feel the need to travel to a certain place in order to honor her or communicate with her.

This Mother's Day was no different from others I've seen come and go in the past 11 years. I graded papers, talked to my dad on the phone., drank coffee, ate dinner. It pretty much came and went. However, I would like to learn to celebrate the special woman who was my mother in some way, but I just have to figure out how.

Let's see.

My mom could whip up dinner in a half hour flat after coming home for work, feeding the dog, emptying packages and changing out of her work clothes. Chicken cutlets, three bean salad, rice and kidney beans, green salad with Good Season's dressing. Perhaps a few biscuits stuffed with spinach and feta. Or maybe it was her night to honor my dad's Armenian heritage by cooking something she learned by watching his mother. I'll never forget the elbow macaroni with meat sauce and cinammon. I wonder what the hell that's called. It was such a bizarre, new flavor that instantly became one of our favorites. Or maybe we enter the house to find she'd made stuffed peppers? Or maybe good ol' spaghetti and meatballs? She'd always bake the meatballs in the toaster oven and let me eat one before it went into the sauce. Yum.

If my mom wasn't cooking and cleaning, she was either cursing and screaming or laughing and carrying on. She was kind of crazy, like me. She didn't leave the house on Saturday or Sunday until it was picture perfect, and even then it was only to run to the store for one of us. She was selfless, dedicated and reliable. Let's not forget crazy.

Beyond showing her love through food, like most Italian moms, she showed it through actions. If we ever fought, and this mother and daughter duo certainly did, she'd always visit me in my room with a peace offering. She spent my teenage years waiting on the couch for me to come home. She spent her summer days and nights trying to entertain my brother and me at the beach or the public pool. She spent her life trying to keep me happy and safe. Our home was one all of my friends felt comfortable coming to, and that was largely because of her. She always let me know my friends were welcome anytime. She tolerated having a dog because I wanted one. She sent me to Italy even though she was afraid to. She accepted me even though I never made it easy.

She died while I still lived under her roof. I have lived three different places since she died. I have never gotten a phone call from my mother, not have I had the chance to pick up the phone in my home and call her. I wish my mother lived long enough to see me enter my thirties. Before then I was so difficult to get close to because I wasn't settled. I was running- finding myself, my career, my partner, my place. Now that many of those answers are found, I would love to cultivate a friendship with my mother- not as a mother and her prolonged adolescent daughter, but as two women, two wives, two cooks, two people.

So as Mother's Day 2010 comes and goes, think of people like me and Madonna. Don't fight, remember to call, come home early, and eat a meatball. And don't wait for Mother's Day to do it.