A parking lot.
A truck with a trailer.
Next
To this? A line up, and a sign:
Lobster $16 a pound.
In my childhood, Mother’s Day was traditionally a big lobster feed.
Sure, we’d have steamed clams and when the muscle ranch went in, we have muscles. They would be potato salad, coleslaw and dinner rolls. Lobster was always the centrepiece.
And despite the fact that this was Mother’s, Day dedicated to mothers my grandfather was always in the middle of everything. But the lobster that my grandfather got never came from the back of a truck in the parking lot. Usually he bought it from one of the fisherman who kept his trailer in my grandfathers campground.
Plastic table covers.
Music.
Laughter.
Mother’s Day was the one day a year that my grandfather pretended to cook. He didn’t barbeque and he certainly didn’t boil potatoes. Nor did he make the potato salad or the coleslaw or the dinner rolls for the Mother’s Day celebration.
He did however boil the lobsters and clams. My grandmother just seem to let him enjoy the illusion that he had cooked supper. Was there tension?
Perhaps.
But I was small. I did not notice. It was enough that we were all there. It was enough being together.
Today, there will be no lobster. And we will all be together. Not all of us, but a bunch of us. Will there be tension? Likely somewhere. And that will be forgotten about too.
Things change quickly. People change quickly. Memories change quickly. Things I can seem important or significant at the time fade.
I like to remember the delicious lobster and having my grandfather passed me handfuls of lobster legs to chew on while I was sitting underneath the table. Yeah I have no recollection of the water they were boiled in.
It’s funny - I was telling the kids today about our lobster feasts of the past, and how ironic it was that mom did not even eat lobster! I can remember Grandad cleaving through the lobster claws with a huge knife and flinging bits of lobster onto the ceiling. Good times. 😊
My only thoughts on Mother's Day is how different it is from Father's Day. How we approach this day says a lot about how we think about mothers and fathers. How many mothers I have spoken with about how dads get it good. Yes, I am the common factor in these conversations. They get to go off and golf or fish and come home to good food and some small gifts and retire to unbutton the top button of their pants. Moms are pranced about to overfilled restaurants and expected to be present and fawn over the 24 window of appreciation. I know that sounds cynical. I don't enjoy how the two days are so different and dads get the top tier day. I had a friend lament that she wished she could do Mother's Day like I do it. She makes herself available, does 90 percent of the planning and execution (has two sons), and was responsible for her Mother's celebration as well until her mom passed recently.
My Mother's Day is simple and everyone likes it. It's a low key Farher's Day. My husband started it the first year with a simple question, "What do you want to do for Mother's Day?" He wasn't abdicating responsibility, he was letting me drive. How I appreciate not being a prop. Editorial note: prop is the root word of property. Yes, this response has a definite feminist overtone. I get up when I want, I do what I want, other people cook, unless I want to, and I am queen of my day. It's better than a birthday, because it's always on a Sunday and my birthday is in the winter. Cards and gifts are a come as you are affair, not expected. A hug and a smile are all I really want. Last night, I bought myself 8 outdoor chairs for the alfresco dining area I am going to build and a second monitor for my home office, all at a deep discount: things I want, exactly as I want them, and at a bargain.
Gifts are nice, but freedom, and the freedom to choose: well, if you haven't read the news lately, that's all mothers want - all anyone wants.