Mother's Day...

Mother's Day was yesterday... this year I sent a bouquet of flowers to my mom... and it made her day. I can tell cos she called me immediately, which is so unlike her. 8) Mom loves flowers!

Mom is not a very educated person, denied that opportunity by the era that she was in, when education was thought to be wasted on girls. But she's smart cos I have observed over the years, the way she does her things and think things through..... and she was a good mother above all. It's mainly because of her that my siblings and I are where we are today.

Mothers are the glue of a family... it's true that in her days, most fathers brought back the dough... but it's the mundane tasks that mothers do that give the sort of stability in our lives. You can count on going home and things would be ready for you. It was unimaginable that fathers would run a home doing those things moms did...the routinely mundane. Yet I think the mundane sums up what makes a house a home.... clean floor, kitchen table with real food, someone to holler to "I'm home" when we get home from school or anywhere, clean clothes - nicely folded and smelling comfortably familiar, always having someone to ask where things are..... mothers seem to be always there. It's a comforting presence and company.

No matter how liberated my world is today, I think most men would find those household tasks mundane. A young man I know once told me that he cannot understand why his mom wants the floor to be mopped everyday. I really don't know too... except that it's to keep the house clean for everyone, clean enough just in case the kids want to roll on the floor. My son often argues with me over such mundane tasks... Yup, sometimes the answer may not seem logical but somewhere along the way, not too long ago, right about the time when the first kid came along... many mundane tasks began to become routine cos that routine seems to be required of what is called home. Mom did that for us, for so long and so many years. I know I cannot expect Dad to be doing that...

Mothers... they give warmth to a home. Today, they're expected to wear many hats. I wonder how the menfolk would react in the same situation.... juggling the home and career; the incessant going after the kids - physically and verbally.... the never ending objects which we seem to keep finding on the floors, etc, etc.

As for me, I owe lots to my mom, I know. As I grow older, I carry with me, many age old wisdom and perhaps too the illogical practices. But somehow they feel so right and seem to be fitting into my life too. And I wonder too whether I'd be able to be that comforting presence in her twilight years too.