They don’t make Mother’s Day like they used to.

Anna Jarvis, a stalwart Philadelphian, had made establishing the holiday her mission since her mother’s death in 1905. Her mother, Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, herself a woman of spirit, had advocated for the creation of a Memorial Mother’s Day to honor the significant role of mothers in their families, churches and communities. In her native West Virginia, she created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address the local issues of poor sanitation and epidemic diseases. During the Civil War, she urged the Mother’s Day Work Clubs to tend to the wounded of both the Union and Confederacy. She was the real deal.

The younger Anna Jarvis, having achieved her goal of a Mother’s Day national holiday when it became law by presidential proclamation in 1917, was soon appalled by the commercial debasement of her noble cause. “I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit,” she declared. She disdained the purchase of flowers and greeting cards as suitable maternal homage. Greeting cards, she said, were “a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.”

Mother’s Day is now observed across the nation by the ceremonial ka-ching of cash registers and the swiping of charge cards. On average, Americans spent $254 on Mother’s Day gifts last year, with total spending that reached $35 billion. Of that, cut flowers from Peru or some such place, racked up total sales of $3.2 billion. And those greeting cards, so execrated by Anna Jarvis, put Americans back $1.1 billion. Ka-ching!

Mothers risk their lives to bring us into the world, and we thank them with brunch at some chain restaurant? They nurture and guide us from infancy into adulthood; they transform our family house into a home—and we reward them with a greeting card? Mothers deserve more.

What’s missing in today’s mercantile Mother’s Day is something more profound and more important: symbolism.

Symbolism engages the imagination and provides lasting inspiration. It speaks to the soul. You won’t find it online, in a department store or boutique. It’s not for sale; you must create it.

This year, for Mother’s Day, honor your mother with a garden. Surprise her with a prepared patch in the yard, a 3′ x 5′ raised bed, or hanging baskets and large pots on the patio—or all three.

A Mother’s Day garden mirrors the motifs of commercial Mother’s Day offerings—but revealed in their pure, original, authentic nature. In the garden are flowers and fragrances, beautiful things to see, delicious things to eat.

The garden itself is a sanctuary, a spa for the senses. It connects us to the earth, the elements, the seasons, the past and future, the sun and stars, the very origins of life.

Brothers and sisters, for our Mother’s Day offerings, let us convey our gratitude, not with greeting cards, but with a message inscribed in flowers, fruits and vegetables in a garden she will treasure from spring through summer into fall—a Mother’s Day every day. That is a gift worthy of Mom. Ms. Jarvis would, I think, agree.

A version of this article appeared in The Times Leader (Wilkes Barre, PA) and The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)