Even simple gestures can go a long way.

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Every year, I forget Mother's Day. It's not like, on purpose or anything. I just really, really suck at dates like that. I mean, generally, when May comes around, I'm scrambling last-minute to find a card that will make it across three provinces in time.

It's not that I don't care. In fact, growing up my mother was one of the strongest people I've ever met. She introduced me to shopping, beginning with Sears and continuing to the rest of the mall. Eventually, the tables turned and I started showing her my favourite places downtown, or online. She taught me about baking and then frowned when I became a vegetarian in sixth grade, telling me I was going to have to learn to cook on my own. While she was never really that strict -- she often cooked me veggie stirfry, and only half-begrudgingly -- I've become a fantastic cook and the fact that she didn't baby me plays a huge part in that.

And then, a few years ago, she did one of the things that made me proudest of all: she stood up in front of a crowd of thousands at the Run for the Cure in my hometown of St. John's and gave a speech about how proud, how encouraged she was...because it was her 10-year anniversary of having beaten breast cancer.

She didn't tell me, originally. I was in second grade and didn't know much about it, but I remember the dishes of casseroles and flower bouquets coming to the house, the neighbours dropping in. I remember how she looked in her wig. And I remember how triumphant, how victorious it was to see her in the newspaper a few years later, wearing a yellow t-shirt and walking the Survivor's Lap in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

And a few days ago, as I was calling her worried about something or another as I tried to move into my new apartment, she said something that really stuck out. Here I was, stressed about if my shoddy $15 Salvation Army desk was going to be able to fit in the door, and she said, quietly: "You know, I'm really excited for your graduation. I'm so glad I'm going to be around to see it." I think I laughed it off, but the significance of her words has really come back to me again and again. I'm thinking about my final papers and buying a new bedspread and she, in her quiet way, is just so glad to be around to see me get my diploma. There are so many firsts and so many milestones she may have missed, and it had never really hit me how devastated I would be without her presence.

So maybe this year I'm even going to get a card a few days early. Send some flowers. Whatever. But no matter the gift or thoughtful gesture, it won't ever really be enough. It's sappy, but her being around is more of a gift than I could ever give her.