“A mother is not a person to lean upon, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.” (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and it was a busy day in downtown Toronto.  I visited Chapters which is a big bookstore in the Manulife Centre and many young children and older children, as well as grown-ups were there shopping for cards and other gifts for Mother’s Day.  As I rode the subway, I also saw many people carrying flowers – although Mother’s Day is not until tomorrow.  I passed a  fine chocolate shop where many people were buying chocolates.  There was definitely an excitement to all this shopping.

I left home with a somewhat cynical feeling about the whole commercial aspect to this day and this is what my post would have been mainly about.  I would have been saying that it generates too much unnecessary shopping.  My trip out, however, changed my mind and my feelings completely and this is a very different post.

There was no time while I was out and saw people shopping that I got the feeling that they were purchasing the gifts that they chose out of obligation.  There was a long line at Chapters to pay for purchases.  A definite holiday feeling was in the air.  I came to the conclusion that the mothering role is definitely an appreciated one for most people.

Mothers wear many hats in the home and in the outside world and are sometimes the main nurturers of their offspring.  As in all other relationships, it isn’t always a smooth road.  However, the main task of motherhood is to teach the child, to the best of their knowledge, how to live in the world so that someday they can take their own place in this vast universe.  Alexandra Stoddard in her book “The Shared Wisdom of Mothers and Daughters” says:  “The sooner we face the reality that we raise children in order that they might grow up and leave us to explore vast opportunities all over the world, and not worry about what their mother will do without them, the happier and healthier we will all be.” 

Leaning on mother is just for a time.  The time comes when a different kind of relationship between a mother and her child emerges – one that is no less full – but in which both can learn  from each other and hopefully enrich each other’s lives through different phases and stages.  All the cards in this collage were given to me and I saved them. Happy Mother’s Day!  Hope you enjoy the collage.

“The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into lustre.”

D.H. Lawrence