Mother’s Day Celebrations                   Continued from Issue 22

Statistics shed little light on what it actually means to be a mother.  As a man, I cannot begin to comprehend the dedication, effort and sacrifice that Motherhood entails.  As a father, I think I have done a credible job as a parent and know the demands of that responsibility.  A challenge of a different order, being a mother demands of the individual, not just a genetic contribution, but a lifetime commitment of the body, heart and soul.  A father is at best a part time parent throughout most of his children’s life, having other significant roles as breadwinner and protector, as well as dedicating significant amounts of time to external traditional social and economic roles in the broader community.  But being a mother is a full time job, one that never ends, no matter what age the children become and which involves a unique emotional commitment that defies both definition and measurement.

Becoming a mother transforms the individual and creates a new personal and virtual universe centred on the child.  Subsequent children create new overlapping universes within which the deep relationship that characterizes the mother-child bond develops.  It is a bond that never erodes and that no force in human nature can overcome.  The love between a man and a woman can attain levels of strength and depth that arguably can only be understood through the lexicon of poetry, but there are no words, poetical or otherwise that can describe the love between a mother and her child.

 I have reconciled myself to the fact that Motherhood is one of those things that I will never really comprehend except in the effect that it had on me as a child and specifically as epitomised by my own mother.  You have already heard a brief recounting of my mother’s life, but it merely gave you a superficial biographical sketch of her as a person but not necessarily as a mother.  My experience of her as a mother was far richer and much more memorable.

I remember that she was mostly a quiet woman, except of course when she sang.  Singing was a passion for her and it undoubtedly evoked deep memories of her childhood and her homeland.  Her voice became a conduit of a thousand years of Ukrainian culture and history.  For her, an important part of Motherhood was to ensure that we understood what being Ukrainian was.  She would teach us songs and help us memorize the verses of Taras Shevchenko and Lesia Ukrainka.  She would spend long evening hours after the normal day’s workload, embroidering for us Ukrainian shirts and stitching traditional costumes.  She would walk us to the Ukrainian hall or church for Ukrainian School or for dance and concert rehearsals. She would encourage us through our mistakes and praise us for our efforts, regardless of how good or bad we performed.

And of course, she made sure we were well fed.  She had a particular talent for cooking.  The smell of fresh potato pancakes frying would have us running to the table without need of encouragement.  Her varenyky, generously sprinkled with shkvarky and mounds of sour cream, were a perpetual treat. Her culinary talent extended beyond just the traditional Ukrainian cuisine.  She mastered the art of making lemon meringue pies that to this day I have not found anything remotely approaching them in taste and sheer gustatory pleasure.  Her cream of asparagus soup was as eagerly awaited at the table as her magnificent borscht, and her Ukrainian pizzas passed muster even with her urbanized grandchildren.

Her foremost priority was to ensure that our needs and wants were taken care of, often at the expense of her own.  When needed, she was also our protector from my father, who though an excellent parent in most respects, was wont to practise the traditional Ukrainian disciplinary response to our mischief, namely, the judicious application of his wide leather belt.  She would always step in at the right moment and ensure that the punishment did not exceed the bounds of appropriateness. Although she always deferred to my father, she was no pushover and made sure he understood that there were lines he could not cross.  The importance of standing up for yourself was a valuable lesson that I would learn from her as I was growing up.

She seldom spent any money on herself, making sure that we always had sufficient clothes, toys, books and whatever else we needed.  Throughout my youth and adolescence, I do not remember her ever taking a real holiday.  It was not until I was working and able to afford it that I finally took matters into my own hands, made the appropriate arrangements, bought airplane tickets and took her for a week’s holiday to visit her cousins in Edmonton whom she had never met.  Needless to say, she enjoyed herself immensely, and my only regret was that I hadn’t done something of that nature sooner.

She was in sum an exceptional mother and I should add and exceptional Ukrainian mother.  You may well ask what distinguishes a Ukrainian mother from any other kind?  Let me give you my personal list of ten ways in which Ukrainian mothers are unique.

1. They believe that the four basic food groups necessary for a healthy diet are cabbage, potatoes, sour cream and garlic.

2. When they make a meal, there are enough leftovers to feed half the Ukrainian Army.

3. No matter how much of their food you eat, they are always disappointed that you didn’t eat more.

4. No matter how small a backyard, they plant a small garden and on ten square feet of land produce more vegetables than a commercial farmer on ten acres.

5. They consider a son or daughter a “smarkach” no matter how old they get.

6. They never let you forget what a “smarkach” you were when you were small and will take great delight in recounting the most embarrassing details of what you did in your foolish youth to your spouse and children.

7. They have the uncanny ability to know when you are lying 100% of the time.

8. Once you are past your teens, their overriding goal is to get you married and producing grandchildren.

9. They chide you for buying a present on Mother’s Day, saying that you shouldn’t have wasted your money, however, if you don’t buy them one, they consider you an ungrateful wretch and you won’t see another cabbage roll or varenyk for months.

10. No matter how much of a “bum” or reprobate you turn out to be, your Ukrainian mother will always love you and make you cabbage rolls and varenyky.

I will conclude my remarks with an old Ukrainian saying regarding mothers – When God created Earth and Mankind, He realized that he could not be everywhere and so he created mothers.