The best thing you can do for your mother on her special day is spend time with her and cherish every minute you share. I can almost guarantee she’ll love that rather than a bunch of flowers that will die in a week or two.

I stress this from past experience. I lost my mother at the age of 13. It hit me like a ton of bricks. However, I feel I have matured greatly because of it. I now understand and cherish things in my life that I never did before, and try not to take the everyday things in my life for granted. I used to wish that I could just have one more day with her, but now five years later I have come to realize that you can lose something you truly care about in a matter of seconds. Time is something I wish I had, but I didn’t understand it until it was too late.

Let’s look at it from another person’s perspective, shall we? But in this situation, the roles are reversed. In the case of Mother Mary, she had lost her only son, Jesus Christ, who had to die for the sake of everyone on this planet.

Think about it for a second. How would you feel if you had to watch your only son get crucified for something He was wrongfully accused of? It would break the heart of any individual, even though you knew it had to be done, so that everyone could have the chance to be forgiven of their sins and welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. I bet Mary still wanted her son to be around preaching the word of God without having to pay the price of His actions.

I often hear people say that “time is of the essence,” but I don’t believe that is necessarily true. People have control of what they decide to do with their lives, and how each moment of their day is spent. There is always enough time to do something that is truly important to you, like spending a quality afternoon with mother and showing her how much she truly means to you in your life.

No one really knows when the hour glass will run empty, but while it’s running I suggest you live your life to the absolute fullest — but take the time to include family.

Just remember one thing: you only have one mother in your life, so treat her and care for her as she has done for you for your entire life because she absolutely deserves it. Nothing will tell her “I love you” more than spending a part of your day recognizing how truly amazing a mother she has been to you.

(Carafa, 18, is a Grade 12 student at St. Basil-the-Great College School in Toronto.)