Mother’s Day is fast approaching. A few years back I decided to spend Mother’s Day with my mom. Of course, I had always sent cards and gifts, but didn’t make the effort to be with her on that day. Now that the kids are mostly grown it’s easier to get out and about. I remember traveling with five young sons wasn’t always fun. Always an adventure, but certainly a lot of work. Packing suitcases, remembering diapers and bottles and extra clothes for the baby. I always forgot something. The best part of traveling back then was I purchased disposable diapers for traveling. At home we still used cloth diapers, wow, that makes me sound so old. But I won’t consider myself old, maybe just experienced.
But back to my mom and our Mother’s Day tradition. She lives in Tooele and is 84 soon to be 85 years old. We go to church with her and then picnic at the park and then back to her house to open presents and my sister always makes (or buys when she’s being lazy) a cake. When family lives far away it’s hard to find the time to get together. I guess that’s why someone invented family reunions, weddings and funerals.
My mom, or Grammie or Gma, the shortened version of her name for internet email purposes, she is quite the lady. She still braves SR-6 to come down and visit and drives herself. She does quite well. One time we got a call from the highway patrol that she was having car troubles just above the checking station in Price Canyon. She told the trooper, no she didn’t want a ride her son would come and take care of her. But, little did she know said son had taken off for Mesquite that morning and wasn’t going to come in handy at all.
So the daughter, me, and my sister-in-law came to Gma’s rescue. I called my trusty mechanic Kevin from Castle Service and he went to pick up Gma’s car and my sister-in-law took her as far as Price to her office and I came from Castle Dale to pick her up there.
She not only had her suitcase, but was traveling with six cakes and two dozen cupcakes that she makes each year for my Valentine’s Carnival at Huntington Elementary.
Grammie is quite the cook. She is world famous for her Grammie Rolls. (I can say that because I have a son in Fiji as we speak.) All my kids’ friends over the years like to come around when Grandma is down with her famous rolls. They are huge rolls and they have texture, not too light and fluffy, just right. If you’ve never had a Grammie roll you just haven’t lived.
Then there’s her sugar cookies, cut into shapes for whatever holiday we are celebrating at the time. They are fantastic.
Well and it’s not just her cooking that makes her special to be around. You can’t have a poker game without Grammie cracking everyone up with one of her antics. On Thanksgiving night last year, one of my son’s friends had a bit longer hair and for three days Grandma thought he was a girl. We still chuckle over Grandma thinking KiKi was a girl. But she’d never heard of a KiKi before and for all she knew he was a girl. Good times.
The best times we can spend are with our family and friends. There is a T-shirt somewhere, that says a bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work. I think that goes for golf, too, because there’s a sign at the golf course about that too. In our pursuit to make a living, we can’t forget to live along the way and enjoy all the little moments that come along.
A day to honor our Mothers, that’s a cool thing. Mothers do so much, it’s just impossible to list everything they have done and continue to do for all of us. We may not appreciate our mothers like we should, but you can always start from here on out to make sure they know how much you love and care for them.
If your mother isn’t here any longer, you can still make sure your children know about their grandmother and all the things she did and what she stood for.
Happy Mother’s Day.
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