Many people buy their mother flowers, schmaltzy cards or take them to dinner on Mother’s Day. Me? I approach it in a more practical manner. This year I started with food shop
ping.
As I drove home to Cape Cod last week, I called my mom from I-95 north. “What do you need?” I asked. After crossing the bridge, I hit Market Basket like a bat out of hell. Once home, the groceries put away, I finished the laundry and organized the kitchen pantry. That evening my mom and I prepared dinner together: fresh cod with roasted vegetables, and then my dad and I went to Par Tee Freeze and brought my mom back a Tiny Tot twist in a cup.
The next morning was gray when my folks and I met my sister Jackie and her two kids at the Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich. For three hours we walked the exquisite landscape, toured old cars, and played in the children’s area, before going out for lunch. As soon as our sandwiches arrived in baskets, it started to pour and a slight sea breeze seeped through the open windows, tickling our skin through our raincoats.
Next up for mom were new sneakers. As someone who owns at least four pairs at all times, I explained that sneakers are to be kept in a rotation. The newest pair for the gym, a pair for long walks to the beach, another pair for walking on the beach, and the last for gardening, dump runs, etc. Not wanting to b
e left out, my dad also got himself a pair, despite my mother insisting his made him look like a hip-hop artist.
The rain stopped so the three of us went to Long Beach in Centerville. Walking along the shore, my mom, wearing her newly relegated “beach sneakers,” pointed to what looked like two enormous sandbags and said, “What’s that?” Upon closer inspection the “sandbags” turned out to be a freshly beached gray seal, his eyes already picked out by hungry gulls. There was a round hole on his side, about the size of a fist, where his guts were spilling
out. As gross as it was, it looked a tad artistic.
Sunday morning, Mother’s Day, my mom, up early and en route to the kitchen to make her famous blueberry oatmeal muffins for me, stopped when I called out, “Happy Mother’s Day.” She came in and lay down next to me. We chatted awhile in the early dawn, talking about summer projects before she headed down to the kitchen, and I snuck into her bedroom to organize her closet.
An hour later, muffins still warm on the seat beside me as I headed south on I-95, my phone rang. “I just saw my closet,” my mom said. “I love it. Thank you for a wonderful weekend.”
Flowers wilt, cards are recycled and dinners become digested, but the memories that come from experiences last a lifetime.
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