You Really should write your Mother a letter
The most treasured gifts don't cost anything more than time
This post was originally published on my blog several years ago when I had a stationery shop & website called A Forever Letter. It is an evergreen post, and I actually just mailed off my own mother’s letter yesterday. Enjoy!
I hesitated to write this. A letter sent today or tomorrow likely won’t “arrive by Mothers’ Day” — a phrase we’ve been hearing frequently for the past week (or more).
I’m also sensitive to the complexities of a celebration of motherhood. Some of us have lost mothers, making participation bittersweet (or just painful). Some of us are estranged from our mothers. Some (or, more accurately, all) find difficulty in motherhood, and feel endlessly inadequate to the daunting task of raising children while also keeping our sanity. Some of us experience daily sadness wishing for the chance to become a mother.
And yet, despite all those reasons not to write about mothers—I couldn’t stop thinking about this simple phrase: You really should write your mother a letter.
Mothers’ Day is often bemoaned by many as an over-commercialized and not-always-sincere celebration of motherhood and the mothers in our lives. Which, to a certain extent, is true. But I think there’s more to it than that.
I wanted to dig a little deeper and asked myself the question: What does a mother treasure; what does she really hold dear?
Is it flowers? (tulips, her favorite)
Is it her favorite chocolate? (dark, always)
Is it a breakfast made by her children, served in bed?
Is it freshly mopped floors? (I mean….)
My conclusion? More than the prettiest, most thoughtful gift, and even more than a clean house, or quiet children—a mother treasures knowing that her labor—her teaching, her encouragement, her support, her love—has not been in vain.
So — send your mom her favorite flowers, buy her something you know she will love — but don’t forget to also write down exactly what she means to you. Your words, written in love, will be the gift she remembers and re-reads for as long as she lives.
And it won’t even matter if it arrives by Mothers’ Day or not. Love, sincerely expressed, is timeless.
Sometimes nothing speaks louder than a silent word written on a piece of paper.
-David Lowenhertz
More beautiful writing Shannon. Thank you. Like James Tollison, my Mother passed away. She was the one who taught me about the importance of writing letters (thank you notes, in particular). I still write her letters (some cemeteries actually have white postboxes for you to put your letter in). When I was in the Navy, I wrote to the Mothers of all of my Sailors to let them know how their son/daughter was doing. 24 years later I still write to a few (and some write back), though I have less to say. So, I join you in saying "You really should write your Mother a letter." And, there's nothing wrong with writing to someone else's Mother either.
How I wish I could. I wish she had lived long enough to have seen the house we bought.