Mother's Day really is all about mom

So, what is this thing called Mother’s Day?

For me, it was a reminder of several things, one of which a fact my mom never let me forget that I was supposed to be born on that day, but came into this world a day later. So much for being a Mother’s Day gift.

Mom also liked to tell me that I was supposed to be a girl. Oh, well.

This Sunday, which is Mother’s Day by the way, has an interesting history, harking back to celebrations of mothers and motherhood by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Closer to our timeframe, “Mothering Sunday” was a Christian tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe that was seen as a time for the faithful to return to their “mother church” near their home for a special service.

Mother’s Day on this side of the pond began before the Civil War when a West Virginia woman named Ann Reeves Jarvis helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to “teach women how to properly care for their children.”

Thank you History.com, by the way.

Other women stepped in with similar exercises in honoring mothers, but it wasn’t until 1908 when Jarvis’ daughter Anna Jarvis thought up a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers make for families. She teamed with a Philadelphia department store to launch Mother’s Day, holding a celebration in a West Virginia Methodist church.

The department store also held an event that same day in May, attended by thousands of people — a sign of things to come. By 1912, many states, towns and churches were holding Mother’s Day observances and through petition of Congress by Jarvis, President Woodrow Wilson established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day in 1914.

Interestingly, Jarvis, who worked with florists and card companies to get the observance going, eventually came to hate Mother’s Day due to its commercialization — ah, America — and actively tried to get it repealed. In this regard, she was obviously unsuccessful.

Jarvis would probably still be campaigning if she were alive, as Mother’s Day has indeed become commercialized. It’s one of the busiest times for florists, restaurants, card companies and others — with all sorts of businesses offering sales on everything from mattresses to vehicles.

But she also might be pleasantly surprised that many people still hold true to the original meaning of Mother’s Day as a time to honor through small, simple acts of love — no matter where they live. Cheney Fire Chief Tom Jenkins and his family have spent the last 25 years marking holidays and observances from afar since he and his wife’s families live in, of all places, West Virginia.

Jenkins said they express their gratitude by doing things to show their love and appreciation for who their mothers are, sending “a little something” to distant relatives and working with the couple’s three children to do something at home.

“Someone to cook a meal, someone to wash the dishes, someone to pick-up, someone to do laundry, anyone other than her that would assume the daily rigors even if only for a mere day,” he said.

Cheney School District Superintendent Rob Roettger said the thing that “struck” him about Mother’s Day was the current situation around the COVID-19 pandemic and how it impacted people who would normally visit with mom on this day, or any day. Roettger said he recently viewed a press conference with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who spoke about all the times he had told his mother he couldn’t visit because he was too busy.

“He goes on to talk about how when this is all over that can’t happen anymore,” Roettger said. “He asks the question, ‘Too busy with what?’”

It’s a point well taken, as you never know how long someone will be with you. Cheney High School AP World History and AP U.S. History teacher Steve Arensmeyer’s mother passed away in 2013 in her mid-60s, leaving an understandable hole.

Arensmeyer said he’s found a way to fill that by recognizing other moms for their contributions to family.

“For example, I usually send a card to my sister, who has two kids,” he said. “My dad has remarried, so I make sure that I send her a card and give her a call as well. She’s not my mother, but she has kids and grandkids of her own.”

Medical Lake Mayor Shirley Maike’s mother, Joyce Calloway, passed away three years ago this month. Calloway was many things in the community, historian, Food Bank director, Planning Commission chair and a mentor and role model to her family, Maike said.

“I remember someone asking me what my mom would have done in this pandemic, and I replied, ‘She’d do the same things she always did: go to the store for someone, take another person to the doctor, figure out a way to go to St. Anne Church in Medical Lake as often as she could, even if she was by herself,” Maike said. “(She would) figure out ways to keep her community together.”

And that is the essence of this thing called Mother’s Day — honoring those who make the sacrifices to keep their communities together, communities as large as Cheney, Airway Heights and Medical Lake and as small as the person next to them. And it’s the little ways we honor them that I think mean the most, acknowledging what they do, picking up a bit of the work, stopping by or calling to say hello.

As someone whose mom is no longer here, I miss being able to do that. Don’t ever take it for granted.

“As we think about re-opening our communities, I hope that we think about our moms,” Maike said. “Those who are young and especially our elderly mothers — what would we do if they got the virus and were not able to recover? I know I’d feel that I didn’t do enough to keep them safe.”

Happy Mother’s Day.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].