Earn4Blog

Mother's Day has long been called a Hallmark Holiday--a day plopped on a calendar that added guilt to our lives and another reason for capitalism to be successful. It meant flower shops would do more business, card and gift stores could run out of stock, bakeries would have one more holiday before the summer doldrums. There was a time when I thought it nonsense. And then it became something special. And each year, it has taken on its own style, its own meaning, and now, it has a place in my heart.

My Mother's Days began with that first bulge, when a friend from work sent me a mother-to-be card and my husband whispered, "Happy Mother's Day" to me on that second Sunday in May before my growing belly had really announced itself to the world. The next year, there was a new baby to cuddle and tea and toast by the bedside. The year after, there was a card from Daddy and a toddler who could sign it with a few crayoned letters, followed by a short brunch at a local diner, just long enough for a 2-year-old to keep still.

And then Mother's Day would take off from there. The next year, another baby was on the way, and the next, there were preschool cards and paper flowers that changed the tone of the gift giving. Now Mother's Day began to be about the children's hand-crafted surprises and a day out together when possible. Sometimes it meant simply gardening in the yard.

Our family never had a real tradition on Mother's Day. It was often Grandpa's birthday. That meant a trip to visit him and cousins 90 miles away, being with our extended family in the Hudson Valley. And one year, sadly only one year, Grandma was in the spotlight. She had traveled from Australia to New York, staying with us for the month of May. It was the older kids' once-in-a-lifetime chance to spend Mother's Day with a grandmother.

And now as I look back, I watch the years fill up like pages in a scrapbook. In my mind, I carry pictures of brunch with two small children and a baby in tow, and then two small children, a toddler and a baby, too. There were marigolds each year, started by seeds in school back in February to be squashed in backpacks and hidden until Mother's Day morning. Some years they even survived to bloom in the garden. There were the handmade cards and paper-framed poetry from first grade, and second, third and even fourth. But then the fifth graders moved into the middle school, and the classic holiday art was about to be left behind.

Another year, our Girl Scouts community held its camping weekend the same time as Mother's Day. Many troops left on Saturday, but several of us mothers with older girls stayed a second night until noon on Mother's Day. What better legacy to give our girls but a weekend of bonding with other women, we thought. I woke up in a rain-soaked tent with my co-leader to help get breakfast rolling. The girls were stalling, it seemed, in their tent.

"Coming, coming!" they cried out but still no movement. A short time later, as we stood with mugs of coffee, which another mother made for us, the girls emerged from the tent with a big handmade poster card that read "Happy Mother's Day. Thanks for spending this day with us."

Then there was the year when my son was a 16-year-old newly driving caddy who worked at the golf club on Mother's Day Sunday. He left for work on his own that day, very early as usual, and after his first round, stole away from the club, drove to a green grocer, finally pulled into our driveway and ran into the kitchen proud to present me with a bouquet of roses. It was the first time he truly made his own decision, finding time, thinking it through and making me smile. It wasn't the roses that mattered.

While most of those Mother's Days did leave me with a smile and made me feel special to my children, now Mother's Day has taken on another dimension. It is more about motherhood than the Hallmark holiday it once needed to be. It's not a day for the kids to make me happy but for me to remember how happy I can be because I am their mom.

Like so many other mothers, I have been cast in a new role as the parent of a child at risk from a life-threatening illness. Instead of strollers and soccer games, we now have a wheelchair and medicine to think about in our planning. But this little girl of ours, living to get well, has already hinted that she has made something special for Mother's Day, and it's giving her something to look forward to, something she can do for someone else. I can't wait.

But, by day's end, I will be happy just to be with my children whether at home, in a hospital or even on the phone. Happy to hold another memory in my heart when the day is over. Motherhood has been such a state of the heart that no day can put it into perspective; and yet, if Mother's Day reminds us to eke one more day a year to celebrate being together--then hooray for Hallmark.

- Extracts From Helen Jonsen. Helen Jonsen is a working mother and senior editor at Forbes.com