Happy Sunday Everyone, and Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms!
True story:
Time: 6:00 AM, 2008, Mother’s Day
Location: Danville, CA, Safeway, card aisle
Jack is 4, Thomas is 2, I pull into Safeway and there are already 40 dads ahead of me. Card aisle looks like a bomb went off (and yes, our boys woke up early). I grab the card, jimmy dean sausage, tater tots, eggs, and roses. Opening the trunk of my car, boys are hitting each other in the cart, screaming at each other, my blood pressure is elevated. Out of nowhere, a white 80’s model Cadillac rolls up next to me. Old man smoking a cigarette, window down, looks at me without as much as a smile and mutters the words “Mother’s Day, worst F-ing day of the year, huh”…and takes off.
Michelle on our team, sends out weekly memes, always on point. Mother’s Day meme said it best “Mother’s Day is about feeling appreciated…. the other 364 days is about trying to not lose your sh#4!”.
Sitting here writing this, I laugh at the thought of what Safeway looks like at 6:00 in morning on Father’s Day. My guess is the card aisle is empty; the planning has been done. There is no procrastination in the playbook.
Mother’s Day is in fact not the worst day of the year, it’s one of the best. It’s a single day to appreciate moms around the world, collectively and individually. For some of us, it’s an opportunity to tell our moms we love them, and how much we appreciate all they’ve done and continue to do for us. For others, it’s memories.
I personally hang around some bad ass moms. I wouldn’t want to mess with them, I wouldn’t want to compete against them, but I’d always want to be on their team and vice versa. My own mom, 81, still crushing it. I had dinner with her last night, we talked about her being a mom. It’s funny the memories she has (hard on herself) compared to the memories I have. I think of Kim with our boys. I think of the moms on our team. These are some serious “because of” people. Their kids will be better in this world “because” of the moms they are to their children.
Simon Sinek wrote a book called “Leaders eat last”. There should be a booked called “Mom’s eat last”. It’s what they do, both physically and figuratively. I can only speak for the moms I know and associate with daily, if I had to think of one word to describe them all, I’d go with selfless. I just looked up selfless, “often sacrificing their own comfort, time, or benefit to help or care for someone else without expecting anything in return”. No truer words have ever been spoken.
Let’s let the moms eat first today!