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Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mother's Day is about cherished memories (and even those that aren't cherished)
Mom looked sad. Clearly, she was having a bad day. I was in high school at the time and arrived home around 4 p.m. She was in the kitchen ironing shirts, with our dachshund on the floor across from her. When I walked in, I saw her and the dog staring at each other. Eventually, she looked at me and said, 'I think the dog is my mother.' I looked at my mom's big sad eyes. I looked at the dog's big sad eyes. Then, I looked back at Mom. 'You mean … reincarnated,' I asked. She suddenly seemed to realize how weird that sounded and snapped out of it. I said, 'I don't think that's her,' and hid in my room until dinnertime. My mom's mother died when I was an infant. Mom missed her terribly, talked about her frequently and had a soft spot in her heart for anything that celebrated motherhood, including 'I Remember Mama,' a movie I've still never seen. I've also never read the book, seen the play, sat through the musical or watched the TV show. I've also never seen 'I Dismember Mama,' a low-budget horror film that appropriated the title. But 'Throw Momma from the Train' was kind of fun. My mom died in 2016. We argued for most of my life, but it was never really nasty. Usually, it was about me asserting my independence. (The first time I yelled, 'Stop treating me like a child!' I was in third grade.) What do I remember about MY mama? I remember the drone of her Singer sewing machine in our basement. (She did 'homework' all night, to help make ends meet.) I remember her on our blanket at Jones Beach telling my brother and me to wave at my father, who had been waving at us, nonstop, for about 10 minutes. 'Wave at your father,' she said, over and over again until a middle-aged woman came out of the water and told my mother, 'Your husband needs a towel. He jumped into a wave and lost his bathing suit.' I remember her years working in the Young Misses department at Alexander's and taunting us with the clothes she bought for herself with her discount. 'See this dress? It was $29, marked down to $19. Then, with my discount …' I remember buying her an answering machine and trying, in vain, to explain how easy it was to use. 'All the buttons are down here,' I said. 'To record a message, you hit record. To play a message, you hit play. To stop the tape you hit stop.' She pretended to listen to me. Then screamed, 'How am I supposed to remember all this?' I remember all the traditional holiday foods she prepared for us, including her Christmas Eve crab sauce and her now-infamous Easter pies. I wrote at least 10 columns about those pies in the last 35 years, and readers still talk about them when they meet me. The one year I tried to make the pies with her — for a column — she yelled at me, incessantly. When I sat down while kneading the dough, she howled, 'Are you crazy? Stand up! You can't roll dough sitting down!' I can think of a million other things I remember, but space is limited. Like many mothers, I think, she would have been happy for her two sons to become a doctor and lawyer. But, by the early 1960s, she seemed to have accepted the fact that she was raising a writer and a mechanic. My brother loved taking things apart and putting them back together again when he was 5 years old. By the time I was 10, I was writing stories on my very own typewriter. In 1963, a Long Island daily published a poem I'd written in school about JFK's assassination. (My first byline!) At 21, I was running a weekly newspaper. Mom was proud, but still insisted, 'You'd make a great lawyer.' When I asked why, she said, very sweetly, 'Because you have a big mouth.' No one knows you like your mom. Happy Mother's Day. This article originally appeared on Mother's Day memories are cherished
TimesLIVE
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
From Whitney to Malaika: five songs for nostalgia on Mother's Day
To mom, with love — a musical tribute to women who raised us By Back in the 1800s, as the dust of the American Civil War settled, one woman — Anna Reeves Jarvis — would change the way we celebrate mothers to this day. Mother's Day began as a celebration to promote reconciliation at a time defined by a battle-scarred US. What was meant to highlight the efforts made by Jarvis's mother soon grew into a global phenomenon celebrated on the second Sunday in May to honour motherhood. To shake up the old celebration, here are five songs to dance to with your mom as she gets her groove on this Mother's Day: Major — 'A Mother's Love' "When my back's against the wall, you rise above them all" — just as the lyric of the song says, starting off with this sweet symphony will remind your mother that nothing beats a mother's love. Whitney Houston — 'I Look to You' Reclaiming her title as queen of the charts, Houston's comeback single I Look to You saw her debut at No 1. Rolling Stone reported the album with the same title was her first to top the charts since her self-titled 1987 release. Houston wrote the song when she went through situations in her life that required her to lean on a higher strength and understanding. 'This song says all I wanted to say,' Houston explained at a listening party. Shirley Caeser — 'I Remember Mama' While we don't want your mothers to shed tears throughout the playlist, we do want them to reminisce about their favourite memories of becoming a mother. That also includes a celebration of their mothers. Caesar's I Remember Mama is a touching tribute to her mom, a song written shortly after Caesar and her family watched her take her last breath. Speaking to fans at a performance, she asked that they look to the song as a way to celebrate their own mothers. Brenda & The Big Dudes — 'Weekend Special' A throwback to her younger years when she was her young, hip and popping self — and when a boy in high school broke her heart. Bring back the memories with Brenda Fassie and The Big Dudes' Weekend Special. This local classic was inspired by the dominant disco sounds of the 1980s and would catapult Fassie to international acclaim. Malaika — '2 Bob' This song will allow your mother to loosen up a bit — hopefully she doesn't break anything! 2 Bob was a hit in the early 2000s that has become a popular favourite for weddings and graduations — and still thumps out of clubs and taverns to this day. The song is from the band's sophomore album Vuthelani, after their successful self-titled debut. It featured in the 2005 compilation Mzansi Greatest All-Time Megahits, Vol 1.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'I Remember Mama' campaign seeks to celebrate all for Mother's Day
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Easter is behind us, and next up is Mother's Day. A local organization asks you to help them make sure no mom is forgotten. Volunteers of America has an annual campaign called 'I Remember Mama' now running for more than 35 years. The Upstate New York chapter is right now accepting donations to share flowers, gifts, and thoughtful cards with local moms who may have no one to honor them. The president and CEO stopped by the News 8 at Sunrise studio explaining that women so often spend all their lives caring for others, so this is a chance to repay their love and hard work. 'We know that there's many women in our community that won't feel so special, because maybe the people in their lives are not here to acknowledge them—whether it's because they've been separated from some of those that love them or they've just outlived them. So we want to make sure they feel acknowledged and show them how important they are,' explains Dr. Junior Dillion. The VOA hopes to make at least 200 gift packages this year for the women in the program's low-income housing as well as across the Greater Rochester region. Dillion says every $45 received equals one delivery. The deadline to donate is May 3 so the gifts arrive in time for Mother's Day. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
