Surviving Mother’s Day is up there with Christmas unless you’re proactive

Mother's Day, the ideal family somewhat of an illusion (photo Megan Cooley, about.com)

The heat is on in the media to celebrate Mother’s Day.

For many sons and daughters, Mother’s Day is not a happy time for a thousand reasons.

A little creativity can turn it around and put a smile on your face and on the face of a mother.

Haven’t got a mother who you can spoil, cherish or take out to diner? 

There are plenty of mothers all around us who will be neglected this Sunday. Go out of your way to find one and give her a call, a card or perhaps brunch. There is more happiness in giving than receiving.

If you have a loving mother who likes your visits, thank your lucky stars because mothers can be less than ideal.

My mother, God bless her, doesn’t like Mother’s Day. It’s pagan to her as a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m pagan to her, since I’m not a JW.

For the past 33 years, since I quit the JW religion and turned Catholic, she’s blown hot and cold about seeing me. It hurt when my mother first started this.

Then people told me stories about an Island mother who abandoned her daughter when she married a Catholic. The girl committed suicide. There were stories in the news about mothers who practiced Sharia law and approved of their daughters being stoned to death.

Mothers abandon babies, murder their children, leave their families to join the circus, become alcoholics or drug addicts, disown them for sundry reasons including Christianity, Islam and a host of wonderful religions. Some mothers are mean. Some are selfish.

Mother’s are just people with all the failings that come with being human. That’s sort of a cold comfort but true.

After a decade of trying to win over my mother with gifts, phone calls and dinner reservations I pretty much stopped calling her until one Mother’s Day 20 years ago.

I was flying from Toronto to Charlottetown, via Montreal, and hit up a conversation at the back of the plane with an executive from a big US multi-national corporation. He was flying to London to wish his mother happy Mother’s Day.

“What was I doing for Mother’s Day?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said feeling guilty. So I explained that mom was a JW who didn’t like Mother’s Day and besides I was on the “outs” with her about being Catholic.

“Nonsense,” he said with the ebullience of someone on their third gin and tonic. “Don’t let her get you down,” he chided me. “Get off the plane in Montreal and take her out for supper tonight!”

When the plane stopped, I got off, and changed my flight to Charlottetown, PEI for the next day. I rented a car and drove 40 miles to St. Bruno de Montarville and surprised my parents with a drop in visit.

“Just in town on business,” I said nonchalantly. “How are things?” I asked.

Blah blah blah small talk until I tossed off “Would you like to go out for supper? Save the work of making something?”

I know it was sneaky to invite my mother out for Mother’s Day one day early, but I caught her off guard and she agreed. One thing about mom: she likes to have her meals prepared and served after feeding us for years.

Thus began my annual surprise Mother’s Day with my mother. It was usually a day or two before the official one, but I always showed up and took her out for a meal.

It almost worked last year but she muttered something about “the way you live” and turned me down, after I drove five hours to Halifax.

This year it was hopeless. She must have known it was coming and said she couldn’t see me this month.

So, if you’ve got a mother who likes your cards, gifts and dinner invitations, cherish her. If not, find someone else’s mother and treat her like a queen.

You’ll feel better and pass the good feeling on.