Mourning Has Broken
Sharing Reflections on Surviving Breast Cancer

• 28 August 2012

“You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.” ― P. J. O’Rourke

It’s Day 3 of Marie’s challenge to celebrate the ordinary, to find the gems in everyday living.

For this exercise I’m continuing to go back through my archived photos, roaming down memory lane until I find an image that pops out at me as being ordinary, yet extraordinary.

Today I choose to feature the dozen red roses my oldest son Cliff gave me last May for Mother’s Day.

Now this seems like a very ordinary gesture, almost a “Duh” kind of event. But let me tell you the backstory.

At 28, Cliff has not recognized this holiday for many, many years. At lunch every year he would tell me, “Happy Mother’s Day,” but that’s only because he was reminded of the day by the church sermon that morning. Perhaps he had been jaded by other family members that Mother’s Day is simply a Hallmark holiday and not worthy of celebration. Perhaps he just refused to admit any weakness that sentimentality would entail, as the above quote might suggest. Whatever the reason, he has not given me any cards or presents to acknowledge this day since his elementary school days when his teachers forced all the students to craft a homemade gift to honor their mothers.

Before Mother’s Day this year, Cliff emailed me to ask if he could drop by my apartment at 1 pm on the holiday. Of course I said yes. When the doorbell rang at the appointed time, I expected to see his smiling face. What I didn’t expect was his offering of a dozen red roses to mark the occasion.  Being a part-time cashier, his budget is quite limited. So I beamed from ear to ear.

The flowers extended to me in a large plastic cup were a bit droopy when they arrived, because they had been sitting without water for a while.

But that didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that my son who first opened my womb those 28 years before had been thoughtful enough to buy a gift for his mother. How ordinary is that? How extraordinary!

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