This week, many countries around the world celebrated Mother’s Day. 

For some, it would have been an occassion of meeting up with long-lost family.  For others, it would have meant sending that greeting card or calling up their loved ones, long distance.  In my house, the occassion went largely unnoticed.  Partly because of the pressures of modern life (and work!), and partly because my mother thinks that gifts bought for her are quite an unnecessary expense.

That’s the way she’s lived her whole life.  Not for herself, but for others.

When you grow up with someone like that, it’s easy to forget that mothers are “real people” too!  My sister – Reshma – captured the essence of this concept really well, in a post on her blog:

She toiled endlessly
As days, months and years passed us by
All she wanted in return
Was to see, a smile on my face…
A twinkle in my eye

In the last twenty nine years
Not a single holiday has she earned
It is only now, that I stop to wonder
How does she find the strength to carry on?

Another favourite blog I read regularly – MetroDad – also offers a perspective on the subject. 

Like borrowing money from the mob, motherhood is almost always a debt that you can never repay.  The woman who selflessly pushed you out of her uterus will always be your mother.  She made you!  No gift to her can ever equal her gift to you — Life (and make no mistake, it’s a mother’s right to remind you of that on a semi-annual basis.)  But really, for many reasons, motherhood is so much more than just a giant credit card balance in the shopping cart of life.

After all, where would we be without those selfless nurturers who changed our diapers, cleaned up our vomit, kissed our boo-boos, and stayed up with us all night when we were sick?  Who else in our lives would cut the crusts off our bologna sandwiches, hide little notes in our lunchboxes, and, every once in awhile when you had the blues, cheer you up by giving you a cupcake for dessert?

Like MetroDad, I am also a “father” (not a mother).  But, I do have a perspective on it… both, as the son of a loving mother and as the husband to a devoted wife who’s now a mother herself ! 

In the 2 years since my daughter (Pumpkin) was born, I have learnt a lot about fatherhood… and motherhood.  I have seen my wife evolve from being a “wife” to being a “mother”.  The unconditional love…The sacrifices…The living beyond self… I now understand a little better, what it takes to be a mother.

So let me take this opportunity to thank my mother, my wife and all the mothers in the world. 

A big Thank You.  For every thing.

No words will come close to accurately describing the sense of gratitude I feel towards you.  Truly.