Judith Woods
On a Mother’s day like no other
Mother’s Day 2020. At once a deeply heart-rending and unexpectedly uplifting moment in these extraordinary times.
The poignant absence of the nation’s mothers was the central focus.
But the human, humane response from their children served as a tribute to Britain’s ingenuity and good humour, even in the grip of a deadly pandemic. Some spoke on the phone or waved through windows to their mums. Others harnessed modern technology and Facetimed from their front rooms or went back to basics and asked their local radio station for a special dedication.
Across the UK, families strove to find novel ways to spread good cheer rather than the coronavirus.
On social media, David Kenworthy made light of stockpiling by tweeting “Best Mother’s Day gift ever. No1 son” beside a screenshot of Andrex loo roll.
Elsewhere, two sisters arrived at their mum’s house with a bouquet in full protective gear, including masks.
A middle-aged woman was filmed several metres away from her elderly mother and holding up handwritten signs by way of homage to the scene in
Love Actually; some were brought to tears by the tenderness of the messages.
Celebrities including Victoria Beckham, Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan and Ant and Dec went online to post throwback photographs of themselves with their mothers “in happier times”.
And then there were snapshots of beaming children standing outside grandmothers’ houses and adults amiably drinking tea separated from their pensioner parent by the glass wall of the conservatory.
Jennifer Grover, 84, a retired housewife and health worker from
Sutton in Surrey, was “visited” by three of her 17 grandchildren via Skype. “We used it this morning for half an hour and that was lovely,” she said. “It was a new and very different experience.
“It’s just because they haven’t been able to see me in person and it was the next best thing.”
But despite the inventiveness and the smiles, Mothering Sunday has given us all pause for thought.
Who could have imagined just six months ago that the simple act of visiting our own mothers would become a life or death decision?
The coronavirus has changed the world. Changed us.
Yesterday, as the Prime Minister urged the nation to stay indoors, and medical experts begged us to keep the elderly and the infirm safe, a generation of mothers sat home alone. There were no joyful family gatherings. No hand-delivered
chocolates from prodigal sons. No fierce hugs and beribboned gifts from daughters. No inky home-made cards and fairy cakes from grandchildren.
It was for their own good. Our own good. Society’s own good. That did not make it easy to bear.
As James Mitchinson, editor of The
Yorkshire Post tweeted to his readers: “This #Mothersday you can give your mum something quite special. A few more years of life on this planet to enjoy their retirements, their grandchildren, the simple things.
“Please don’t put them in grave danger for the sake of sentiment.”
In London, Kensington Palace shared a message from Heads
Together, their mental health charity, which asked people to get in touch with those who found Mother’s Day difficult, including those who have lost their mothers, their own children or could not be with them.
It was a reminder that despite social distancing, we can – must – continue to connect in other ways. Yesterday offered the perfect opportunity.
Unlike Valentine’s Day with its exploitative blizzard of hearts and orchestrated schmaltz, the promotion of Mothering Sunday has always felt entirely benign.
It represents a welcome nudge to remember the incredible, selfless women who birthed us, reared us and made us who we are. Some of us discover that we had no real inkling of how much, how unconditionally, our mothers loved us until we had children of our own.
And so Mother’s Day has evolved into a unique and uniquely intimate date in the calendar. A harbinger of spring, it is reverently set aside for quiet joy; green-tipped bulbs pushing through the dark earth of Marks & Spencer planters, glasses of generic fizz (mothers invariably cavil at the extravagance of champagne) or a stroll around a National Trust property.
Not this year. Stately piles are closed. The shops are deserted, restaurants have brought the shutters down in a bid to kill off Covid-19 before it wipes out a generation.
With inventiveness and determination a great many of us joyfully marked Mother’s Day.
But the bleak reality is that the risk we – any one of us – pose to our parents extends far beyond this one day. It reaches into tomorrow, next week, next month.
If we can’t visit our mothers on Mother’s Day, when can we? That is the harrowing question nobody dares ask because nobody can answer.
‘Give your mum something special. A few more years of life to enjoy their families and the simple things’