My Mother's Day in Joburg

my mother and me

Celebrating Mother's Day was never really a big deal for me. For one thing, it falls in the middle of an already crowded month chock full of family birthdays and other May holidays. Like having your birthday fall during the attention-grabbing Christmas season, my Mother's Day was always overshadowed by my birthday.

And while my mother was still alive and even after I became a mother myself, Mother's Day was never about me anyway. On the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, I would usually pick out and plant my mother's garden annuals for her. Her favorite geraniums, begonias, and petunias. Then on Mother's Day itself,  I would take her to a botanical garden or park. We'd either start off the day with a family brunch, have a picnic lunch in the park, or end the day with afternoon tea.





Sometime over the same weekend we would celebrate my birthday, my brother's birthday and my husband's birthday - all of which fall on or around Mother's Day - with a big family dinner so I always felt like I got enough of my own Mother's Day action in there too.

a charm bracelet with most of my sons' vintage charms

Our little family of four had our own traditions too. When our boys were young, Vince would take them to a local antique jewelry store in order for them to each pick out a vintage charm for one of my many charm bracelets.

my gardening charm bracelet

Mother's Day bouquets from my sons in California

Vince tells me the antique dealers would get a huge kick out of these two hulking boys hunched over a tray of vintage charms trying to find the perfect gardening tool or jeweled ballerina charm to buy me for Mother's Day.

And bath products! My boys loved to buy me smelly soaps and bubblebath.




When they got older - and I ran out of room on my charm bracelets - the charms were replaced with a simple handpicked card and a bouquet of flowers and usually Vince would arrange a spa day somewhere for me in lieu of the bath products as a present from the boys.

celebrating Mother's Day near Monterrey last year in March!

Once my sons left for college and especially after they moved out to California, we were rarely together on Mother's Day itself anyway. But it didn't matter to me. Every time we are together it feels like Mother's Day to me! 

after gardening, a celebratory Bellini and the Sunday NY Times

Gardening remained a big part of my Mother's Day celebrations even after my mother passed. I would use the weekend to pick out and plant my own summer annuals. Sometimes I would add to my perennial gardens and replace any shrubs or trees that didn't quite make it through the winter.

The Mother's Day right after my mother died, I decided to plant a "Mary Garden" in a corner of my own garden. We had seen a beautiful Mary Garden on the grounds of the Cathedral at Knock in Ireland and I became infatuated with the idea of them.

Mary Gardens are planted with flowers associated with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Clematis, columbine, Canterbury bells, primrose, foxglove, iris, bleeding heart and of course roses, many of which bloom around Mother's Day. My mother's name was Marie and it just seemed an appropriate way to continue to celebrate motherhood with her.

For Mother's Day that year, my son Nick found this really cool vintage chalkware statue of the Virgin Mary for me to use as the centerpiece in my new Mary Garden. That was a particularly good Mother's Day present, Nick!

This year, I will have to delay my Mother's Day celebration in person with my sons until I go to the US in July. But I will take my local boys, Lou and Serge, for a walk in a garden or park instead. I do not have any gardening to do myself at Valley Lodge but I can still take afternoon tea amongst the marigolds in its well-established gardens. I will visit the Mary Garden at my local church in Rivonia - yes, they have one! - and light a candle for my mother after Mass.

Then there is a special Mother's Day showing of The Age of Adaline at the Rosebank Sterkinekor before the best part of every Sunday, our weekly conference call with our sons back home.




Happy Mother's Day from Joburg!