A Mother’s Day tradition
Spreading kindness in memory of her mother helps young mom endure weeks she dreaded
For nearly two decades, Christie Pham dreaded Mother’s Day. Her own mother died 22 years ago, when Ms. Pham was 17. As soon as Easter was over, she remembers getting upset seeing card displays and commercials.
“It was extremely hard,” said Ms. Pham of Marshall. “I didn’t want to deal with it. I was known to just get in my car and cry.”
About three years ago, shortly after the birth of her second child, her husband asked her how she would want her own kids to celebrate her on Mother’s Day after she was gone. And so began a new tradition.
In the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, she performs random acts of kindness as a tribute to her mother. This year, a friend designed a card she can leave that explains the situation. “You have received a random act of kindness in memory of a special mom who taught me that the most important thing in life is to be kind,” it says.
Ms. Pham, who helps administer a Facebook group of motherless mothers, is using the hashtag #raok4mom to spread the word for others who might appreciate the ritual.
She knows that it’s not for everyone who has lost a parent.
“A lot of them are brandnew — they might not be ready,” said Ms. Pham, who currently stays at home with her 3-year-old son and 6-yearold daughter but previously was a child and family therapist. “It took me about 20 years to make this a positive thing.”
Her daughter sometimes helps her come up with ideas to honor “Angel Grandma”: This week they left dollars in the Dollar Spot section of Target for others to find, with her card attached explaining the good deed. She also paid for the lunch of a woman behind her in the drive-thru line at Wendy’s and volunteered to return a shopping cart for someone at the grocery store.
Once she started doing the random acts of kindness leading up to Mother’s Day, she also started doing them in October, around the anniversary of her mom’s death.
“It made a week I dreaded into a week I looked forward to,” she said. “It turned it into a very positive thing.”