Mother’s Day is a day of celebration and reflection. Each of us has a mother and a grandmother whose touch whether gentle or firm has indelibly marked us. Some of us have lost our mothers to sickness or death at any early age and the embodiment of maternal nurturing may be but imaginary. Mothering is not for the fragile, hours are long and the sacrifices longer but it is the most meaningful of all occupations and its rewards monumental and unsurpassable. We, the lucky ones, are those whose mothers have been strong, protective and loving giving us a solid precedent of footprints and a cache of soft nostalgic memories. It is these women, the strong and the weak, who we celebrate each 2nd Sunday in May.

Each year mothers are honoured by the Estonian Society and the Pensioners’ Club "Kuldne Klubi" in Vancouver. Krista Tanner made a wonderful heartfelt speech on May 13 to the 48 Kuldne Klubi attendees. In a room that was filled with huge vases of fragrant lilacs and lily of the valley bouquets she so masterfully spoke about the delights of motherhood, witnessing the secrecy of children disappearing into their rooms with sheets of red construction paper after issuing instructions not to open their doors. She illuminated the joys of grandmothers, pointing out that Mother’s Day was a day when grandmothers didn’t have to do anything at all, they didn’t have to eat a breakfast of burnt soggy toast and sip flat ginger-ale, they could just sit back rest on their record and wait for a telephone call, a bouquet, a lunch invitation or a card. Perhaps the happiest on Mother’s Day are grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

Märkmed: