It’s amazing the perspective you gain as you grow older.
As a youngster, I never really had time for the advice that my mother offered me.
It would range from sound advice about life – it’s best not to get into a long, drawn out argument with someone (even if you’re right) – to the seemingly mundane, i.e. don’t wear tube socks while wearing a suit.
But now, looking back, the advice was sound.
You tend to be a little self-centered when you’re younger and you also don’t appreciate the little things that people (like mothers) do.
A plate of dinner left in the oven so that I could have something to eat whenever I worked or came home from school late, picking me up from a bus stop late at night – things, you don’t think much about at the time but do now.
There were also things that didn’t seem to make sense. Limiting the amount of time I played Nintendo or watched TV, so I didn’t become like a zombie. Making me read over the summer to keep my mind sharp.
Of course, the limited TV and video games and the summer reading seemed like the cruelest and unusual of punishments but again, looking back it was all beneficial.
I’m sure those of you out there who have good relationships with your mothers could share some stories too and don’t forget, Mother’s Day is this Sunday (May 13).
Some lines from Debasish Mishra’s poem In Praise of My Mother summarizes it the best: “She starves for me and feeds me well, gives heaven to me and accepts the hell . . . I can never repay, this I assure; for her love is Godly, pristine and pure.”
And while many of us probably raised a lot of hell and drove our mothers crazy as youngsters, we can pay back a little on the big debt owed to our mothers on Mother’s Day.
Take her out for a meal or buy some flowers if you wish but it’s better to do something from the heart, something personal.
You know your mother and it is right to show her that you love and appreciate her and try not to limit it to one day of the year either.
If mothers limited their care and love for one day of the year, the world would be worse off.
Thankfully, in many instances, that isn’t the case.
– Karl Yu is editor for the Grand Forks Gazette
