Helen Jean MacLellan, circa 1956 or 1957, aged 16 or 17 years old. (Photo provided by Norma MacLellan.)

Every year on the second Sunday of May I miss out on a tradition. I see flower sellers hawking bright bouquets near busy traffic corners. I hear radio DJs telling listeners to pick up the phone and call mom. I see tables of white-haired women enjoying a cup of coffee with women and men just a little less grey. I see men at the grocery store asking their children to pick out a balloon for mommy. I smell the spice-rubbed steak on barbecues around the neighbourhood.

I loved Mother’s Day as a child. My dad would fry up eggs, bacon and potato scones on his electric skillet. One of us five kids would carry the breakfast tray up to mom and sit on the bed watch her eat this special meal. The only difference from any other Sunday was my mother did not normally eat breakfast in bed.

I couldn’t wait to present her with gifts. China cups and saucers were a favourite gift because mom loved a good cup of tea. Other gifts of mine consisted of tiny mice figurines and balloon-skirted ladies holding parasols and pink pearls from the Sears costume jewelry clearance table. No matter the tackiness of the gift my mother always seemed genuinely happy to receive it.

On some Mothers’ Days our family of seven would go to mom’s mom for dinner. It was pretty crowded in Granny’s tiny house off the Queensway but Granny had raised six children of her own within those walls, so no biggie. Some years, depending on the weather, we would picnic at Sunnyside Beach in Toronto with both grannies in tow.

Yet ever since losing my mother to cancer when I was still a teenager I have felt left out of Mother’s Day. It’s a loss that never goes away. Mother’s Day isn’t for celebrating other people’s mothers; it’s about your own mom. Three decades into living without a mother, realizing she never saw me graduate from university or high school for that matter, never met my husband of twenty-three years or knew about my love of cycling, it hasn’t become easier; I have become accustomed to it.

I don’t get to have an adult relationship with my mother or spend a certain Sunday in May walking through a garden centre or having brunch with her. What I do get is to recall the smiles and the thanks for those childish gifts. Those childhood memories are going to have to stand.