Mexico – Mother’s Day?

I don’t know the stats, but surely, other than religious holidays, Mother’s Day has got to be the biggest day of the year in Mexico. So what happens when you’ve got to celebrate in the days of a COVID-19 lockdown?

By the way, a quick update. Going by the “official” numbers, Mexico is very much at a different stage than the USA and Canada. On the one hand, it looks like while Canada has had less than half the cases per capita than the USA, Mexico has had less than 15% of what Canada has had. Even though in total cases it’s about half of Canada.

But the 7 day average of new cases is not as encouraging. Canada has been recording about 78% of the cases for the week as it was a week ago. The USA, 89% – not quite as encouraging, but an improvement. Mexico, on the other hand, is recording almost 123% what it was a week ago. In other words, going by the official numbers, the number of cases are rising pretty quickly, while they drop in the rest of North America.

Ok, those were your stats of the day.

Mexico always celebrates Mother’s Day on the 10th of May, no matter what day of the week it falls on. So, as you can imagine, having Mother’s Day on the weekend is a big deal! But – do we really want everyone visiting their Moms right now – especially their elderly Moms?

Mexico City came up with a clever solution – let’s postpone Mother’s Day! So, the new date, apparently, is the 10th of July. As one graphic said – If Mom waited 9 months to meet you, you can wait 2 months to celebrate her.

To be honest, I’m not sure how many people paid any attention to the memo.

Not only was there concern about visiting Mom, there was also a concern about line-ups for flowers, and crowds at the cemeteries.

Yes, visiting Mom at the cemetery is also a big part of Mother’s Day. So the announcement came from the municipality – don’t even try. The cemeteries are closed. Except for burials – and in that case only 15 people maximum will be allowed in.

However, there were lots of online events to keep Moms entertained for the day. And although I’m sure there was a lot of secret visiting going on, the online visits were also happening, and it seemed like the internet almost couldn’t bear the weight of it all!

We enjoyed a great Sunday service put together by our friend Oscar, with special prayer for the Moms, a quiz about Moms in the Bible, and a special reading. We sang a song to the Moms led by Rod. And providentially, our Bible reading on Sunday was Psalm 131.

And of course we were able to spend some time with our Moms as well!

So – a very different Mother’s Day this year. And who knows? Maybe we can celebrate again in July! 😀