Happy Mother’s Day to magnificent matriarchs everywhere.
I hope that you will be spending some special time with your loving, appreciative offspring.
Or with the loving but not-yet-appreciative ones – the stroppy kids and moody teens who still roll their eyes when you impart your pearls of wisdom.
Such as, “Do as you would be done by”, “Mind your Ps and Qs” and “Never wash your dirty linen in public”.
These are all in a list of top 20 Mumisms – maternal advice which children shrug off as nagging but later come to cherish. Because most of us DO eventually realise that mum was right all along. But not until we’ve turned 26.
And a Post Office poll of 2,000 Brits found that 57% only really get it once they are parents themselves.
I was lucky, though. I was still a teenager when I realised mothers’ wisdom is something to be treasured.
My own mum, Gloria, had been diagnosed with cancer and the prognosis was very bleak. But somehow she battled on.
Every day, I soaked up more of her love and wisdom, and stored it away for when she was gone. I can actually hear her voice in my head coming out with more of the Post Office list Mumisms – “Don’t live in the past”, “Know when to say sorry” and “Always eat your greens.”
She had many, many more pieces of sage advice. And, apart from keeping my vest on until April Fool’s Day, they have become my manual for life. “You can’t heal the world but you can help people” was another favourite. Because in her own nursing career, she never lost her capacity for kindness, compassion and fairness.
I was 26 when Mum died, 33 years ago next week. She was 57 and now I’m a year older than she ever got to be.
So Mother’s Day is always bittersweet for me and my brother – just as it will be for many of you tomorrow.
You may be grieving a loss, navigating a strained relationship or struggling with motherhood yourself.
So I’m sending you a really big hug and two other Mumisms – “Life isn’t fair sometimes” but “A little kindness goes a long way.”
I have still got the final Mother’s Day card I gave my mum in hospital.
It had a badge on the front, which the nurses pinned to her nightie. “World’s Greatest Mum,” it said. And to me, she was.
But as we celebrate ALL magnificent matriarchs tomorrow, I know she would happily share the honour.
