Once a year like so many other celebrations, there comes a day that we all celebrate. It does not really matter what race, religion or creed that you belong to, this is a celebration that no one can or will protest. A day to celebrate mothers.
While we do not object to the idea of a day to celebrate mother’s, we do realise that one day a year is not sufficient to thank mother’s for their contribution to our life.
Image from the New York Post (EPA)
This year, a lot of us undoubtedly had to made do with muted celebrations. Be it celebrating with your own mothers or the mother of your children or with the special people in your life that are mothers and recently for those that “mother” others. The Covis-19 pandemic has created a new reality for us when it comes to gatherings to celebrate. We read with fascination and horror the article by the New York post on how the spread of Covid-19 may have been worsened by concerned and loving grandchildren visiting their grandparents. A similar article by the Wall Street Journal hinted at the same. It is ironic that one endearing quality or attitude can cause pain and misery in today’s world, but that is the reality of the world that we live in today.
The Malaysian Government has announced that the Movement Control Order (MCO) will be extended yet again to June 9, 2020 as announced by the Malaysian Prime Minister today. This would mean that the MCO would have been enforced for a total 0f 80 days by the time its ended. While there are some debates as to whether the MCO needs to be extended (even with the relaxation on movement for work) or how are the people and companies going to cope economically with prolonged shutdown, it is not the topic for today.
This Mother’s Day sees a large number of video calls and even more video conferencing calls as loved ones from near and far reach out digitally to reassure their mothers that they are not forgotten. Since no fancy brunch, lunch, tea or dinner can be organised, many families make do with a coordinated video conferencing get together. A far safer method than a personal visit and certainly convenient for those that are not residing locally.
Necessity is the mother of inventions, is a common English proverb. In this case necessity is the mother of technology adoption. The number of mothers, tech savvy or otherwise, adopting video conferencing tools is definitely at an all time high. And the fact that we are at the start of Ramadhan and may not be able to “balik kampung” will definitely hasten this trend.
While we are all sad that we may not have the opportunity to “balik kampung” this Raya, it is certainly better to be safe than sorry. On this matter, we do hope that the “Whateverlah” attitude will not override our common sense and our concern for our mother’s safety and health.
The truth of the matter is this, today’s Mother’s Day post, is basically a call for all Malaysians, if you love your Mother, Grandmother and other “Mothers” in your life, show them how much you care this Ramadhan and Hari Raya by NOT visiting them. We are also not specifically targeting any particular race or religion; everyone should show how much they care about their “Mothers” by staying where they are and waiting out the MCO.
It is certainly a tall order given how much all of us love our mothers, but we do hope that we all will be able to comply and in the many celebrations to come, Hari Raya included, we can all look back at Raya 2020 and talk about the time, where ironically, showing mum how much you cared was NOT visiting her during Mother’s Day and Hari Raya.
For this we sincerely hope that the usual response of “Whateverlah!” will not be the standard response. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Image courtesy of Pixabay