I’m 41 years old, for gosh sakes, so my Mother’s Day obligations last week consisted of helping my kids get something cool for my wife and making sure I got a card out (which, of course, my wife makes sure I do).

Cards, really, are pretty crummy mementos when you really think about mom and what she does. But the truth is that gifts, letters or even a million dollars wouldn’t come close to putting things in perspective. I guess that’s why the symbolism of a card has become so popular: there’s really no way to adequately express the character of motherhood in any succinct, tight package. It’s too wide, has too much breadth, is too full of devotion and warmth.

Most of what I have to go on is based on what I saw in my mom, and there’s really no way I can do her justice with some card from Hallmark scanned through the checkout line at the super discount store by some teen-age girl with five earrings and a tattoo who’s smacking on gum and wearing way too much make up. It almost seems disrespectful.

You just never realize what it takes to be mom. I well remember when I was about 5, watching my mother chase my older brother around the back yard trying to catch him so she could punish him for saying something disrespectful. She caught him soon enough, and I learned very early there’s no escaping the strong maternal instincts to teach children right from wrong.

After my mom and dad figured out their marriage wasn’t going to work, mom did what she had to do. With three boys - 12, 14 and 16 - to raise, she went into the work force full time in her middle age. For years she peddled clothes in a department store, putting in long hours for little pay. It’s what had to be done, so she didn’t complain or look back, she just got to work.

And it’s not as if she had three little angels at home. Sorry, but that was the family down the street, or maybe in the next neighborhood. We weren’t the boys who had dinner on the stove when mom got home from work. It was the 1970s, the Vietnam War was just over and Fayetteville was a reckless military town. Divorces were skyrocketing, and many families had fathers either serving overseas or lost in the war. This wasn’t Mayberry.

But Mom handled school suspensions, academic woes, fights and scrapes with the law with a stern grace, giving real meaning to the “tough love” phrase politicians and others so easily toss around these days. I simply can’t imagine how much more we could have put her through.

And it wasn’t as if she was just going through the motions, simply putting in time until we were out of the house. Through all this, we were encouraged to do well in school, participate in band and sports, do the things that kids are supposed to. And we did, all of us.

Talk about learning how to stand up for what’s right. I remember once I was wrongly punished at school by one of those rare teachers who take real joy in humiliating students. Most of the time the teacher’s verdict was law, but mom saw through this one and took her 110-pound self right to the school to discuss the situation with my 300-pound teacher. That was 500 sentences that teacher wished she’d never ordered a kid to write.

By the time I was in college, mom had found someone who was ready to shower her with love and respect, and my brothers and I couldn’t have been happier. She was a newlywed, and I remember how proud she was when my vacations could be spent in her new home instead of the trailer park where we had been living. Talk about things working out like they are supposed to.

And now, in her 60s, guess what - mom still is going above and beyond and doing it, again, with grace. In addition to showering grandkids and great grandkids with more than a grandmother should, she’s helping my brother raise his son. A rocky divorce and other problems have placed my nephew in her home. So she’s raising another teen-age boy in that same neighborhood, with the same kind of love, respect, discipline and encouragement my brothers and I grew up with.

Watching my own wife obsess, cry, brag about and give everything to our own children, I now have a much better idea of what mothers are all about. And I know one day a year just doesn’t balance the scales. What’s a son to do?

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainews.com)

 

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