Is It Just Another One of Those Onedays?

We Americans number among our quaint customs, along with taking blessings for granted, the designation of "recognition days" for various institutions, traditions, customs, happenings and categories of our fellow humanoids.

Thus it is that we observe numerous "Onedays," 24-hour periods each year during which we turn a spotlight on subjects which, implicitly, we feel might otherwise be underendowed with attention.

The more familiar of these include, alphabetically, Father's Day, Flag Day, Groundhog Day, Independence Day, Labor Day (curious, isn't it, that there's no Management Day), Memorial Day, President's Day, Thanksgiving Day, Valentine's Day and Veterans Day. Add a pious plethora of religious dates designed to stimulate our spirituality and/or pangs of personal guilt.

Less known are the Onedays dedicated to Children, Grandparents, Friendship, Elephant Appreciation, Teachers, Nurses, Crossing Guards, Good Neighbors, Ice Cream, Maple Syrup, Bratwurst and Pigs-In-A-Blanket. (All true! Would I lie about such weighty matters?)

Aside: My favorite offbeat "Oneday" occurs on February 20, officially designated as Hoodie Hoo Day. Exactly at noon on that date, in the unlikely event that you didn't know, participants take to the street, wave their hands over their heads and loudly shout "HOODIE HOO," then return to whatever they had previously been doing. This is believed to chase away winter and encourage the onset of spring, perhaps as an additional safeguard against the possibility that Punxsutawney Phil (a.k.a. the groundhog) had too good a look at his shadow earlier in the month.

Now, then, being an attentive reader, you must have noticed that Mother's Day was missing from the above list of recognition days. This was neither happenstance, nor an episode of Oldtimer's Disease, nor a deliberate snubbing of Momdom.

Far be it from me to rap this time-honored salute to the wonderful women without whom the earth would be populated entirely with land, water, air, vegetable matter and only the lower forms of animal life.

Rather, in fact, the thesis of this opus is to deplore the fact that a single day on the pedestal is so lowly a level of laudation for these fabulous femmes. It's a gross underpayment similar to (but on a smaller scale than) that given to secretaries, who typically get candy, flowers and maybe lunch with a boss who treats them like tool kits for the rest of the year.

If you read this column on or before May 8, 2005, chances are you'll do one of two things during that day: If you can't get in direct touch with your Mom, you'll be remembering her as she was when she was still reachable.

Either way, it will be but feeble recognition of a service to you so monumental that in order for it to be repaid in kind, you'd have to celebrate it every day of your life.

Unlike other designations warranting a Oneday distinction, Momdom is not a one-and-done event, or a now-and-then commitment.

From the moment of conception to her last gasp of breath, motherhood is a 24/7 vocation, never far from the consciousness of its designees.

Mothers are creatures terminally infected with love of and concern for their children, even those they don't always get along with. An indestructible bond exists between them and their progeny that even they can't explain in words - or allow to be completely broken by circumstances.

Mothers automatically acquire a wisdom beyond learning, instincts beyond skill, patience beyond normal endurance and tenderness beyond description.

Although just as subject to imperfection as all other humans, mothers hold a place in civilization higher than any honor bestowed by society - and they earn it by trading it for pieces of their very selves.

Those of us who are fathers also have our Oneday, but any man who thinks of his contribution as being anything but minimal by comparison just doesn't get it - perhaps forgetting, or never really knowing, what he got from his own Mom.

Whatever you'll do - or you did - on Mother's Day this year, make it a point to do it again, and often, between now and the second Sunday of next May.

On whatever days you might choose to remember her, you can safely bet that she'll be thinking of you, no matter where you or she might then be.

That's the way Moms are, and that's why just one day per year isn't enough, as it might be for elephants, nurses, crossing guards, Punxsutawney Phil, and the Hoodie Hoo celebrants of late winter.