Like every year, Mother’s day is here again. Like every year I went to buy a card for my mother and like always I spent an hour in the card shop and also in the one next to it, going through every mommy card they had, to (very unlike the past years!) finally come out with one. Needless to say that I found it absolutely inappropriate from the moment I stepped out of the shop. And needless also to say, that I thought of not sending it at all. Until my small little wonder taught me a lesson I’ll cherish throughout.

It becomes extremely difficult for me to consolidate all my feelings for my mother, the sense of admiration , gratitude, love, expectations, hopes, pride and God only can understand what all, in a small card or even a letter for that matter. A day it seems is completely insufficient to express feelings that have built over the years. A day I feel is never enough to justify that bond, that’s been there forever it seems. And one does keep expressing the love throughout the year, then why again on this very day especially.

I bought the card for my mother and thought of giving her a call too, but like every year, this year too the same thoughts kept coming back to my mind – “what’s in a day?” If the day is to celebrate motherhood then, I feel each woman has her own day, the day her kids are born, for she is born as a mother with them, that very day.

I cherish the day I came out of seven hours of grueling labor the first time to hold my pink fur ball in my arms and thirteen hours of it the second time, barely managing a smile, but holding a triumph in my heart. For me, these two days certainly score over any other, as my personal two Mother’s Days. And am sure each one of us mothers has her own day to celebrate.

With these thoughts in my mind I was contemplating sending the card to my mom or not, when I was reminded by my daughter of the celebration in her school. The school is celebrating Mother’s Day and all mothers are invited to a cultural programme. Each one of us has to bring something for the eats, mine being a casserole of noodles.

So quite mindlessly, I mumbled “what do you know about Mother’s Day?” to which she promptly replied “Oh that? That’s the day everybody says ‘I love you’ to their Moms.”

She went on to explain to me the card she had made in the school for me, “I have written D-E-A-R-M-M-O and I don’t remember what, in the card. I’ll give it to you when you come to school with the noodles Mummy. Are you coming today?” she asked the nth time again, as she had been doing for the past four days.

She kept chattering on after that, but my mind was stuck on the one innocent sentence of hers - ‘That’s the day everybody says I love you to their Moms”. Like a whack at the side of my head, the point was driven home. It was as simple as that. Maybe my daughter did not know what was in the card, but it did matter to her that her Mom should be there at school, when everyone else’s is, so that she can give the card, eat the noodles and most importantly – say, I Love You Mom!

It was all about Moms, kids, and expressing love. I guess for all of us, these words mean far more than fancy greeting cards. Mother’s day I guess celebrates this love and this bond, the sound of which reverberates in the laughter of children and the proud twinkle in a mother’s eye.

With my lesson well learnt I finally got down to writing the card, not forgetting to add the magical words – I Love you Mom. The card, which although did not express all I felt for her, but sure did convey my love. The card, that I posted this year on Mother’s day.