it is a truth so well acknowledged that it scarcely needs to be written–there are four days during the year that the presser boys cannot forget me. one: christmas (who cannot forget that one?), two: my birthday (july 23rd in case you’re in the early shopping mood), three: valentine’s day (okay, okay, it’s usually associated with romantic love, but i get a pass on this okay?), and then the big kahuna of mom allegiance:
mother's day is huge! it was originally intended in the 1800s as a pacifist holiday and was nationally recognized in 1914. father's day wasn't recognized officially until the nixon administration. i actually am old enough to remember nixon. argh!
oddly, my oldest son joseph was born on a mother’s day sunday in 1988–and please don’t do the math on the date i got married although it is a medical miracle that he was born four months premature but fully eleven pounds eight ounces.
sometimes my sons eastman and joseph both, during their newly minted adult independence, have forgotten or misplaced a holiday. it’s tough to forget christmas but there’s been occasional lapses on valentine’s and my birthday. i tend to disown them in my mind. . . . at least until they remember and, in varying degrees of contrition, they have their memory and mother love restored.
in any event, this past year and a half i have been traveling a lot to visit facebook friends and i planned a visit to new york this coming may 6th in order to celebrate mother’s day with joseph and then to remain in new york so that i might celebrate his birthday on the eighth. and to visit facebook friends! maybe even wordpress friends who tell me they’re available! i fly out to new york on the sunday the sixth and return on the twelfth of may.
there’s only one minor problem which i discovered–
oh, the irony! i get so darned upset if the boys forget mother's day and here i have . . . forgotten what day is mother's day! mother's day is traditionally observed on the second sunday of may. this year it will be the latest date in may that it can occur--the thirteenth!
this coming mother’s day, i will be thinking also of my mother. i have a biological mother named aleta. i lived with her and my father until i was three years old. then my parents put me up for adoption. i tracked them down when i was twenty five years old. a few years later, my mother aleta cut me off. she has only seen my older son joseph once and has never met my younger son eastman (who just turned twenty). i recently sent her a facebook friendship request.
my mother loves animals and lives in washington, d.c. and, like me, she trained as a lawyer. when i sent her a friendship request, my account was suspended for fourteen days because facebook freezes an account if someone you send a friendship request to claims that they don't know who you are.
i am looking forward to seeing my son joseph in new york and visting with facebook friends–even if i have miscalculated. . . .
arlynnpresser 