Mixed Feelings on Mother's Day

Every year it gets worse.
Every celebration that has meant anything to us, that used to draw us closer as families and friends, is threatened now to lose all meaning, to bring nothing but frustration and sadness.

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My older sister and my mother at home. I have not been able to visit home in 6 years. This will be the third year without seeing my mother.

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Mother's day used to be some sort of mid-year Christmas. Sons and daughters would travel from anywhere in the country to see their old ladies. The monday after Mother's day used to be a de facto day off. People would manage to get the whole weekend so that they could spend the best time possible and make their mother feel really special.

In small towns, especially, it was an eventful occasion. Friends who had not seen each other for some time, would meet again under the same festivity. They would bring money and presents to usually boring places that would be revitalized, at least for a weekend, to honor the most important women in their lives.

Those who for some reasons could not travel, would send money or presents so that their mother would not feel neglected. In most places, entire communities would organize public parties to honor all the mothers in their area. Music, songs, dances, raffles, food and drinks would make everybody feel enthusiastic about what it means to be family and what it means to raise children. The respect and admiration mothers got was unquestionable.


Now things have changed so dramatically that, despite the efforts most people make to keep the spirit of the celebration alive, the fact that most Venezuelan mothers, especially the elderly, have most of their children abroad or that the crisis is so extreme that very few can affort to travel from one town to the next, mother's day is now loaded with nostalgia, frustration, and sadness. It is very difficult to provide for our mothers these days, even more so in special holidays that used to be a chance to provide them with nonessencial items, guilty pleasures, or bucket-list petitions.

We are back to the basics; to valueing gestures, conversations, or a simple picture. Sending a mother a shopping list bag is now a blessed and welcome gift. No mother can expect now a trip to a special place, a washing machine, or new clothes.

We keep isolating ourselves and numbing our emotions when it comes to family events. Every day a mother dies alone; every day a mother dies without having seen their children one last time; every day a mother sees their children die or learns about their death without being able to say good bye.

In the last months alone, I have had to give my condoleces to friends who have lost their mothers and were not able to travel for their funerals. And this is something that in the case of Venezuela has little to do with the complications derived from the pandemic.

It is increasingly difficult now to show mothers how much they mean to us. Happiness may not rely on money; but money, along with political and economic freedom, is a key ingredient for healthy family relations. Venezuelan mothers deserve better. Our children deserve better. In the meantime, our old mothers keep praying to see an end to this, to see their families united again, to die a decent death, just like their mothers did. That's what my mother talks about these days. So much for a "pretty revolution."

Thanks for your reading

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