When Is Mother's Day?

Two of my most respected writers, Chitang Nakpil ("Mother's Day is for sissies.") and Rina Jimenez-David ("Unless my children make an effort, Mother’s Day passes like any other weekend."), do not go gaga over Mother's Day as many people do. 

Reading their articles on this event that is celebrated almost worldwide, I heave a sigh of relief.  I am in good company.

I have lived with males all my married life and so I march to a different drummer. The oldest male is a dyed-in-the wool adman, who creates and hypes up interest for special days, so he is cynical about occasions like  Mother's Day or Valentine's Day.

So, yeah, I have a family that doesn't celebrate Mother's Day (or any legislated occasion for that matter) on the same day the world does. 

This year, I must say that marketing experts outdid themselves. "Happy Mother's Day!" seemed more like a tic than greetings.  At every turn, wherever you look—FB, cellphone, media, streets—people just have to say it, over and over again, ad nauseum, to every mother they meet.  I was greeted gazillion times myself.  Three days later, I was still receiving belated greetings.

It seemed like a crime, punishable by lethal injection, to miss saying the phrase to every mom.  

Over the years, on Mother's Day I get a half-yawned "Happy Mother's Day" early in the morning from four men.  Later in the day, when I am not busy with church ministries, I join them for lunch (Sundays are the boys' lunch-out day, prior to their doing groceries.). In 2007, they surprised me with a food trip to Chinatown, which they do with friends often, in the dead heat of summer.

Gianina, my favorite daughter-in-law, is the only reason I now receive beautiful, long-stemmed roses on this day (every year, without miss, since her marriage to JB).

It's a thoughtful  gesture I truly appreciate, but never expect from, nor require of, my boys.

I do not begrudge the many moms who verbalize their wishes (and therefore granted), and are pampered on this day. 

For someone who sometimes forgets birthdays and anniversaries, I don't shoot any son who fusses not over mom on this day either.  

I do admire the originators of this idea and I am happy that they got the world on their side, but I have equal admiration for those who look at unnamed days as times of thanksgiving for God's creation called mothers.

Ruth, just widowed, told her mother-in-law Naomi,  "Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.  Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried." (Ruth 1:16-17)

By this, she honored Naomi as the mother of her late husband.  She did not honor her only on that day, but through all the days of her life.

I am not being presumptuous when I say that my boys do honor me, not only on Mom's Day, but on any God-given day. How do I know?

Their father cooks me breakfast (every day). JC is my 24/7 Bible consultant.  Although he is my resident IT, he refuses to install in my computer anything pirated or illegal.

JR leads mission trips, and now in a distant land, he attends two worship services. He wrote me an email:  "I was wrapping my books yesterday in plastic and it painstakingly took me around an hour to cover four books with varying degrees of success. It only goes to show that men will always need their mothers."

JB loathes any professional who pays no taxes and is passing on the Christian values he learned as a child to Adrian.  On Gianina's FB wall, I read he is a caring husband. He also surprised his dad and me with a medical insurance we progressively need as we head towards the sunset.    

Like Ruth to Naomi, my sons love the God I love. Because they honor my Savior, they honor me more than they'll ever know.

Mothers feel it when we're being loved or honored, any day. We have been knitted with the grace of knowledge about things the world doesn't know. 

That's why we're called mothers. The Lord made every day our day.