When I was a child, there was always a predictable flurry of activity as Mother’s Day approached.
My sister and I usually hit the ground running a day or so before the big celebration. And since our piggy banks rarely held much money, we had to be creative when it came to gifts.
One year we managed to scrape up enough cash to finance the purchase of a dazzling diamond necklace from the local five-and-dime store.
Well, we thought it was made of precious jewels since it was so shiny, and my mom never corrected us as she pulled it from the box and looked at us with eyes glistening with happy tears.
Whatever we gave her, she reacted with such joy that we felt we’d done something wildly wonderful.
If we crafted crooked cards sprinkled with misspellings, she displayed them on her dresser. If we made her breakfast in bed complete with charred toast, she nibbled joyfully on our offerings and praised our culinary skills.
Looking back, I see that all the presents we gave her paled in comparison with the great gift she gave us. It was, pure and simple, accepting us with all our flaws.
She had her work cut out with me, her chubby, shy child who whiled away hours reading fiction and scrawling secret notes in a diary. When other kids headed to summer camp, I found the notion of a night away from Mom to be an agonizing thought, and she didn't force the issue.
Other kids excelled at tumbling in physical education class, but I approached the mat with fear and loathing. Instead of telling me to get over it, my mom wrote occasional notes requesting that I be excused from that dreaded activity.
And then in high school the other girls started dating, but her shy, introverted -- and, yes, still chubby -- daughter had no interest. When I fretted that perhaps something was deeply wrong with me, my mom confided that she, too, had matured late when it came to boys.
She held me tight and assured me that someday I'd meet my Prince Charming, when the time was right.
She's been gone now such a long time -- but I’ll never forget the moment when I’d come home from college and she’d greet me at the door telling me about the manicotti she’d prepared.
And when I left, how she would stand in the driveway in her flowery housecoat and wave at me until she could no longer see the car.
Every Mother’s Day I think back on the gifts I gave her -- all those boxes of chocolates, the nightgowns and the bottles of cologne. And every Mother’s Day I realize that she was the one, all along, giving the perfect gift to me.
Lorraine Murray's latest books are “Death of a Liturgist,” a mystery set in Decatur, and “The Abbess of Andalusia,” a biography of Flannery O’Connor. Her e-mail address is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
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