Eyes that see the good in things: May 7, 2018

Did you remember Mother’s Day is just around the corner? Not this Sunday but the next, on May 13. While the Mother’s Day that we celebrate is a recent development in the world of holidays, the basic idea goes back to ancient mythology—all the way back to the long-ago civilizations of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks paid homage to Cybele, the mother figure of their gods, and the Romans dedicated an annual spring festival to the mother of their gods.

In 16th century England, there was a special Sunday set aside for a celebration called “Mothering Sunday.” It was a Sunday specifically to visit one’s mother. The eldest child in the family would bring a “mothering cake,” to be cut and shared by the entire family. The children assumed all household duties and prepared a special dinner in honor of their mother. Sometime during the day, the mother would attend special church services with her family.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating the second Sunday in May as a legal holiday to be called “Mother’s Day”—dedicated “to the best mother in the world, your mother.”

For the first few years, the day was observed as a legal holiday. Church services were held in honor of all mothers, living and dead. In many ways family observances very much resembled that of the British version of “Mothering Sunday.”

Today, many countries celebrate Mother’s Day, or a version of it, at some point in the year. Mexico, in particular, seems to take Mother’s Day or El Dia de la Madre very seriously. Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for Mexican restaurants. Flowers are a must, and the day is filled with music, food, celebrations, and often a morning serenade of the song “Las Mañanitas” from mariachi singers.

Looking back on my own memories of Mother’s Day makes me smile and shake my head at the same time. I wonder how many truly horrible breakfasts my mother had to eat as each of her six children took their turn at making Mom’s breakfast in bed.

Picture a young child, oh, so carefully and slowly making her way across the living room carpet to carry a bowl of cereal to her mother’s room. No matter how careful she tried to be, it seemed that the milk inevitably sloshed out onto the tray. There was cold, dry toast. If Mom was lucky, there was peanut butter or jelly provided to her. But then… we started cooking. Mom was lucky enough to get eggs, both under-cooked and over-cooked, cold burnt bacon, and pancakes that were almost black on the outside with raw batter on the inside.

She would eat her breakfast, profusely thanking the beaming face of the child chef who had made her Mother’s Day breakfast that year. If I remember right, one year her breakfast came served with no plate. It was just plopped right on the tray! For some reason, at our house, breakfast in bed was reserved for the younger kids. Of course, it may have had something to do with the older kids no longer wanting to get up early enough to get it done.

After breakfast, which involved most of us hanging out in their bedroom, we got ready for church. There all the moms in attendance were given a carnation. The year came when we realized that many of the mothers came to church wearing a corsage, so we determined that the next year, our mom would have one too. Not knowing how to order flowers, we were so happy to discover that the grocery store near our home stocked an orchid corsage in a clear plastic box, purchased directly from the produce section. Rest assured, we did eventually figure out how to order from a florist.

As we got older though, I remember making Mother’s Day dinners, except the only things I really remember from those dinners were the desserts. We tried to be so fancy. Unfortunately, fancy was something we rarely achieved.

There was one year my sister wanted to make petit fours. Those tiny, pretty white frosted cake squares decorated with pastel pink flower buds and green leaves looked so pretty in the cookbook. We couldn’t agree on a filling, so I think we made three. One was just a strawberry jam… and one was lemon. Well, okay maybe we just made two--but have you ever tried making petit fours?

They were impossible to frost, the crumbs and the fillings kept mixing in with the frosting and they looked terrible. My sister said she had seen a magazine where they poured the frosting over the tiny cakes and she thought that would solve our problem. So, we thinned the frosting down with a lot of milk and poured it over our cake squares. We watched as it ran off the squares and pooled at the bottom in a puddle of runny, powdered sugar icing. The little cakes soaked the icing up from the bottom in a soggy mess. It was awful.

Our decorating attempts were no better, and we were so disappointed when we plated up these lopsided lumps of cake. Some with lumpy, clumpy, crumb-filled frosting, and some very wet pieces of cake-pudding. All with a salmon colored pink star on top because we couldn’t make those pretty little buds in the cookbook. It was a traumatic experience that would now be considered a Pinterest fail. I’ve never made them again.

We made a huge mess in the kitchen that year. I remember that. I hope we cleaned it up, because I don’t remember that. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t know that my mom was ever served breakfast in bed by her kids after they learned how to cook. Maybe one year, we’ll have to go home and serve her an excellent breakfast in bed. And even clean up the kitchen afterward.

In the true spirit of the bill signed by Woodrow Wilson, I say “Happy Mother’s Day to the best mother in the world—my mom!”

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