Mother’s Day

Thanks to the marketing and soliciting campaigns that flood my mailbox (not the email) everyday with flyers and pamphlets announcing Mother’s day specials, that I come to know that the day is fast approaching.
Send the most thoughtful gift to mom, most unsual gifts at unusual prices, tell her you love her, can’t decide what to buy- give her a gift card, we care for your mom and a neverending list of such promises.Also from my son’s daycare- we need to take a picture of you with your child, so please moms make sure to drop off your kids on this date etc.
So there is all ho-hum about mother’s day.Last year I enjoyed a pancake breakfast at my son’s daycare and then the honored moms left for work promptly , leaving behind tears and wails and I wished I hadn’t come. In times like this when I think of my motherhood , me as a mother and I think of my mom as a mother. And alas I find that her shoes are too gigantic for me to fill and I can never be able to hold a candle to that glorious sun.
My mom had her house full of kids and her hands full of all the chores and her mind full of questions from our homeworks, but how beautifully she handled all of it.I remember her chopping vergetables and boiling milk and correcting my maths equations – it should be x +3y not 2y. Had it been me, I would have spilled the milk or cut my fingers , for sure.I remember her rolling the heap of dough into rotis everyday, twice, sometimes thrice a day. She never had the luxury of take-out dinners or pizza delivery.I remember her sacrificing the dessert for a child. I remember her stitching clothes in the night after the kitchen work.I remember her fasting all 30 days and still cooking lunch for us.I remember her eyes full of tears when she came to see me off at the bus or train, leaving for my hostel.What I don’t remember is her relaxing and just taking rest, time off for herself.
Now I think that maybe her lean frame had extra bones, maybe she had a dozen hands, half a dozen ears and at least a quarter of a dozen ears and mouths. Maybe her day had 48 hours.
So, that’s what a real mother is and who deserves to be appreciated, not one like me.I left my kid in the care of others since he was an infant, I left for work although his forehead felt hot like a coil. I could not witness his first group stage performance because of work obligations.I drop him off for the good part of the day and when he gets home, I ask him not to nag me with his questions and play the cartoon movie for him, so I can cook peacefully. Although I cook dinner, but most of the time its accompanied with heated frozen breads.My mom even chided me for counting the rotis while cooking and she says she misses cooking that mound of the atta now that all of us siblings have left for our own homes and hearths.I have just the evenings with my son and still I am looking for a window of time to read my book or going out for a walk without him.On weekends, I am looking for a time to go shopping peacefully without him or both of us ask him to do some drawing or scribbling while we watch a movie.
So, just biologically giving birth to him doesn’t make me a mom , worthy of any mother’s day gifts or treats. I am a mother just because I carried him for 9 months, and that is because there was no short way out of it, but the real substance, I think, I lack.