Mother’s Day, birthdays and anniversaries are about appreciation and gratitude. These days acknowledge accomplishments achieved and challenges met as we roll from year to year; they recognize and honor the large and small successes of daily life and of obstacles overcome and joys shared. Celebrations mark occasions and efforts that deserve honor and special attention, remind us of who and what are important and of our common goals and dreams. They weave us together and replenish our individual and joint wells of strength so we have emotional resources and deep relationships to draw upon when the rough times abound.
When these special days or events don’t receive their due, it becomes a slight of omission, which creates a scratch on the Heart and over time these scratches accumulate and become a wound. The wound gives purchase for other slights to land upon, that otherwise may well have just slid away. These slights accumulate and eek deeper into the heart and soul. A wound ignored can turn debilitating. If tended to begin with, it heals.
Last year, when I was managing a flower shop guys would come in and tell me they needed flowers because they’d screwed something up with the woman in their life. How much trouble I’d ask? Whether they said a little or a lot, I sent them out the door with something sincere and heartfelt rather than grand and verbose: one rose instead of the 2 dozen he came in thinking he needed.
As I wrapped their flower/s, I’d tell them that the best occasion for flowers is no occasion: the best occasion is just because. Then it’s spontaneous, it has come from the heart: it’s just because you wanted to do something to bring someone joy. That’s what we want, and need: sincere gestures of love and appreciation. They don’t have to be grand and opulent and over the top (those are saved for turning 50 or being together 25 years!) Go for a pot of tulips, lunch out in the middle of the week, a magazine, a hug in the grocery store - well, maybe Home Depot - that's a lot more likely!
All of us, mothers, dads, kids, need types of acknowledgment, the special days and the just because ones.
