Every Day Is Mother's Day

Yesterday was my second Mother's Day in New Zealand. The first one, last year, slipped past in a blur of assignments and the small daily work of settling in. This year I had a little more room to breathe, though it was still a quiet one. Maybe it's because the Korean Parents' Day on the 8th of May still feels more familiar to me than the one here.

Jin had been working on her gift for weeks. At school she made a card, glued on paper flowers, and shaped a tiny stand for my rings — painting it with such care that her hands came home stained. Inside the paper wrapping was everything she had carefully moulded, dried, and coloured. And then there was the small thing of her tiptoeing up to my dressing table, reaching for a ring to set on her little stand.

On Sunday morning the girls were busy from early. While I was still half-asleep, slow to rise after a late night, they slipped out of bed and ran downstairs. After a while Jin came back with a heart folded out of paper — clearly with her older sister's help — a tiny note tucked inside. Love, mom, the letters wobbling. A small piece of happiness.

A little later Hyun came over with a thick card of her own. When I opened it, an accordion fold unfurled, and along each panel was a small envelope. Inside each envelope was another little card. I love you. Happy Mother's Day. There was even a voucher for two free errands.

Somehow she has grown into a child whose hands are clever now, who makes me sweet cards on no particular day at all, and who puts in extra care when the day calls for it. A quiet, overflowing love — the kind that turns every ordinary day into Mother's Day.

I sipped the latte my husband had made with warm milk foam, and got on with making lunch for the children who were already crying out that they were starving. For dinner we gathered around a hot pot together — the kind of meal that suits the cooling air, loud and full of chatter.

These children, who make me a mother, are my blessing. And I hope, in turn, to be a blessing of a mother to them — the way I think of my own.