Chairman’s Message

A Mother’s Day Message

When we were kids, our Mother’s Day tradition was to make our mom breakfast in bed. AJ, Amanda, and I would gather our ingredients around the stove: the box of pancake mix, a measuring cup, a bowl; slippery strips of turkey bacon; perhaps a couple of eggs. Using the stove was a rare pleasure for us, and I loved pouring the pancake batter, watching it bubble and brown. We took breakfast to our mom along with any gifts or cards we may have had. We told her how much we appreciated her.

I know now it was not nearly enough—the breakfast in bed, our thanks. Not until I had a daughter of my own did I realize how much my mom did for us (and still does), how much she sacrificed, and how easy she made it all look. The way she worked full-time but still drove us to school and picked us up, every day. Chauffeured us to sports practices and games, brought our homework when we forgot it, came to the nurse’s office when we claimed to feel sick. (“My head hurts, my throat hurts, and I feel like throwing up.”) The way, I just learned, she used to crouch in the bushes, hiding, to watch our tennis matches, because AJ and I had told her not to come, it would make us nervous.

My mom was present. And more than that, she made us feel she wanted to be. When I was with my mom, I never felt like she was eyeing her watch, waiting for bedtime, or for my dad to get home, or to finish our errand. She gave her time, and herself, generously, endlessly. I see her doing it all over again with her three granddaughters, Charlie, Josefine, and Tessa. The gift of my mother’s love has never been clearer, or more dazzling, as it is now, when I’m a mother myself, when I know how hard it all is.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I hope to be half the mom you are. I love you.

And happy Mother’s Day to you: the mom who’s trying to hold it together; the mom who’s late for work because her kid threw up on the way to school; the mom whose entire day is spent at home, sorting shapes and managing meltdowns and counting down till the house is quiet; the mom whose kids have left home, who is rediscovering who she is without them; the mom who has had to endure the pain of sick children, lost children; the mom who is now a grandma, whose house rings with children’s laughter again. Happy Mother’s Day those who never got to be mothers, though they wanted to, and those who are still trying. Happy Mother’s Day to the women in our lives who are like mothers, who bless us with their love and wisdom. May you feel loved, may you feel appreciated, and for goodness’ sake, may you get a massage.

Love,

- Katie Gutierrez Collins