Skip to content

COLUMN: Happy Mother’s Day

Here’s a few of my own thoughts on being a mom
29002434_web1_220505-WLT-Column-Mother-sDay_1
A painting one of my sons made me for Mother’s Day many years ago. (Monica Lamb-Yorski photo)

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

Hopefully someone will treat you to something on Sunday, May 8.

Whether it is a cup of coffee in bed, a bouquet of freshly picked dandelions, a box of chocolates or someone secretly tidying up the house, mothers are apt to appreciate gestures in all shapes and sizes.

I still have many items, such as a painting on the wall one of our sons made me for Mother’s Day 18 years ago and a clay vase our eldest daughter made and gave to me 30 years ago.

Things like that still make me appreciate the joy motherhood has given me.

When I became a mother I quickly learned my limitations and found it was a lot easier to accept them than try to emulate the abilities of others.

It was enough for me just to prepare my youngest daughter’s hair for ballet class while her three younger brothers horsed around in the studio change room.

Attempting to scrapbook milestones for each child would probably have done me in.

Becoming a sports mom was a foreign concept for me, and to this day I don’t understand all the rules of the games, as our six adult children will verify.

I did learn how to put hockey gear on a six-year-old and became better at making sure all pieces were inside the hockey bag before we left for the arena.

Through my shuttling children for soccer, hockey, volleyball, basketball, rugby, dance, theatre, music lessons and mountain biking I became convinced humans should all learn sign language.

That way us parents could hand signal from the sideline to our child on the field to say, “I’m running to get your sister from dance and will be back soon so wait in the parking lot.”

My mom died in October 2021, so I won’t be sending her a card or gift, but I do plan to thank her out loud for all the love and encouragement she gave me.

Mom had dementia the last four years of her life so we didn’t talk much.

Last summer while visiting her, I found one of the things we could do together was sing. Both of my parents were musical and we grew up with lots of songs.

We sat on a bench in the park where she took me to learn how to swim when I was five, and sang Froggie Went a Courtin’ together, one of my favourites. I took a little video and sent it to my siblings.

There’s a beautiful rendition of the song on YouTube by Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower if you are interested.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
Read more