Cherish Mom by taking time to connect, make memories

Today is Mother’s Day. Have you called your mother yet? If you haven’t called, texted, wired flowers, bought a gift or made reservations for brunch, tea, dinner or spa, don’t panic. Take a deep breath and remember what Mom loves best: togetherness.

She never tires of feasting her eyes on you in person or on Facetime, or exclaiming with delight when you voice call (“Hi Mom, happy Mother’s Day, your card’s in the mail!”).

You may be empty-handed, you may be late, but she’ll give you the benefit of the doubt — Mom’s not gonna check the postmark.

If you can, get together with her today in person or by the media of choice. Not to make you feel more guilty, but some of our mothers are no longer living.

My mother died 10 years ago, and I observe Mother’s Day by taking flowers to the niche in Nuuanu where her ashes and my grandmother’s lie side by side.

I take time to let the memories flow. Once when I was living in New York City, shortly after my grandfather died, Mom and I went to Carnegie Hall to hear Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax play Beethoven’s late sonatas for cello and piano, which made us cry.

Another time, the gilded strains of the harpsichord in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos filled us with joy on a New Year’s Eve at the 92nd Street Y.

When my son was born, my mother made pigs’ feet soup in my brother’s kitchen and brought it by taxi to Harlem, wheeling the hot pot to my bedside on a surgical cart. I’ll never forget the sound of it clattering down the hall and the smell when the door flew open.

In later years, when we flew to Hawaii for Christmas, Mom baked dinosaur cookies with Rory.

I also regret the things I didn’t do with her.

In her mid-40s, Mom, to my horror, announced that she wanted to take up boogie boarding so she could accompany me out surfing.

Not only was she a weak swimmer, and a smoker at the time, but she swam with her head held up out of the water in order to keep her long, pinned-up hair dry. I refused to teach her.

Instead, she quit smoking and started walking around Diamond Head, which she did for years, wearing a velvet, visored cap embroidered with elephants.

She preferred to walk alone, at her own slow but steady pace. Once, when she was recovering from a stroke, she let me go with her.

Halfway around, on the hot backside of the crater, she became weak and disoriented, probably due to dehydration, which could trigger another stroke. I got her to drink some water and then she promised to sit and wait in the shade at the Kapiolani Community College bus stop while I sprinted back home to get the car.

Mom had always been headstrong and independent. I was terrified she’d wander off, but to my immense relief, when I returned, there she was. She looked like a lost little girl.

Moms will also accept material tributes, of course. I’ll never forget the coffee mug with the stenciled pink heart, filled with little scented soaps, that my 9-year-old son bought with his allowance at a Mother’s Day sale at his school, nor the later, annual ritual of peppermint foot cream. One year when he was grown, he surprised me by sending an opulent arrangement of cream and red roses chosen, I suspected, by his first live-in girlfriend, Kaitlin, who is now his wife.

On Mother’s Day two years ago, when Kaitlin was in town and Rory was in New York on a business trip, she accompanied me to a concert by the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra. It was a favorite outing for my mom, a conservatory-trained pianist who used to dress up in her finest jewelry and silks and beam with pride as she watched my brother playing bass.

Just as I used to with Mom, Kaitlin and I sat on the right side of the house, which afforded the best view of John, his black hair shining at the back of the string section onstage.

Afterward, my daughter-in-law and I went to the niche and placed flowers.

“I wish I’d had a chance to meet Dolly,” said Kaitlin, who didn’t meet Rory until after his grandmother died. “Rory loved her so much.”

But Mother’s Day is a mere pretext for celebrating a woman who deserves to be remembered year-round. My husband and I regularly get together with my siblings and their families, for that is what Mom wanted most of all.

“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.