Mother’s Day—a day where the women who serve as cooks, taxi driver, seamstresses, personal shoppers and overall paragons of virtue for their children suddenly turn to their ungrateful brats and say in a dark, ominous voice: “Time to pay the check.”

Interestingly, a May Mother’s Day is more of an American thing, although many other countries celebrate on that day. Granted, the second weekend of the month is a good time to celebrate the women who birthed us and doomed themselves to forever listening to and solving our problems, with winter but a distant memory while summer hasn’t yet ravaged us with its fiery temper. There’s also the fact that spring tends to be know for birth, reawakening and the return of beauty in nature.

In Egypt, Mother’s Day is celebrated March 21 to coincide with the first day of spring. In Ethiopia, they celebrate Mother’s Day three days after the end of the rainy season—which makes for a short window of time for booking brunch or buying presents. Indonesia celebrates on Dec. 22, while the great day falls on Oct. 14 in Belarus. In Ireland, Mother’s Day coincides with the fourth Sunday of Lent.

Back home, Mother’s Day was a major mission for Anna Jarvis, who first pushed for a holiday to be established in 1905 after the passing of her own mother, an activist who cared for soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. Jarvis managed to get the first celebration, religiously at least, going at a church in West Virginia in 1907. Congress rejected a proposal in 1908 to make Mother’s Day a federal holiday, but by 1911, all of the states made it happen on their own.

Ever since I moved to Wisconsin, Mother’s Day has become very significant to me, as there was about an eight-year period when I only got to see my mother once a year or once every couple of years, depending on when I could scrape up enough money for a flight from Arizona to the frozen tundra. Now that I’ve been in Wisconsin full time, it’s become a ritual to take Mom out for brunch on the big day, a small way to pay her back for all she’s done for me.

The first year I did it, it didn’t occur to me that a bunch of other families had the same idea and packed themselves into restaurants to the point where we had to wait a while for available seating. I became wiser after and made sure to get reservations somewhere first. A couple of years, I procrastinated until the last minute, but I managed to make it happen. Come on, what’s love without a little bit of peril to make it all worthwhile?

The plans for this year got a little interesting. Mom was thinking a brunch at a Mexican restaurant might be interested. After all, she raised me in Arizona, where Mexican food was as much a part of the state’s culture as supper clubs are in Wisconsin. When we saw that the Mexican restaurants locally were either closed for the day or had a menu that didn’t quite capture our appetites, we decided to go with one place in between where Mom and I live that we’d gone to before.

Normally, getting reservations would just require a phone call, but not this year, as the facility’s business hours have drastically been cut back. I called and just got voicemail, which politely informed me I could leave a message reserving for Mother’s Day, and then someone would call back to confirm. I did, and I waited.

Two days later, someone called back, but with cellphone coverage in the country not being the best, I didn’t get the message until I was back in civilization. I called back several times to confirm, but to no avail. A couple of days before the big day, I finally got things nailed down, but not for the time we wanted. Mom wanted to dine at 11 a.m., but I was informed the only times left were for 12:30 p.m. and later. Needless to say, I’ll start planning further ahead next year.

It was rough in 2020 when Mother’s Day happened in the midst of everything being shut down, so brunch was not an option, and the mere suggestion of going to see Mom for at least a visit had health experts in a panic, proclaiming even going to see your mother was likely to kill her, the wrong message to send to mothers on their special day. After that, it became even more important to show Mom appreciation for what she’s done for me and what I’ve become due to her love.

On this special day, it’s time for children, young and old, to pay the check. Mom’s already done plenty to show she loves us.