Mother's Day

So, the day before Mother’s Day I was something of a basket case. This is my first Mother’s Day without a mother and I was not handling it well. At all.

But, that’s weird, because this was never a big holiday in my family. As a kid, I remember my Dad responding to queries about what he was getting his wife with “She’s not my mother.” So, he didn’t go out of his way to make the day for her. And all I remember giving her were the crafts and cards we made at school.

As an adult, I would sometimes bring my Mom a plant she liked for the garden, and plant it for her since she did not like to garden herself, just admire the results. More often than not, I just volunteered to plant what my siblings brought over.

When I became a Mom, I didn’t get much better. While I appreciated my Mom more than ever, and told her several times, I have never been organized enough for more than a homemade card, hand written by the girls just before we headed over to Nana’s house (and, in the interest of complete honesty, sometimes scribbled in the driveway before we walking in).

So, why did I have a breakdown over such a second thought holiday?

I don’t know. Maybe because I was helping my own students create Mother’s Day crafts for their mothers. But I think really it was just that I miss my Mom and all the talk around this holiday made me think about how wonderfully she didn’t need holidays to show us love or give a gift. I missed my mother simply because it was a day in my life that she was not there.

So, I grumped and complained and could not be consoled or comforted on Saturday. My darling family gave me space.

But on Sunday, I woke to a lovely bouquet of dandelions – a flower, I’m not kidding you, that I love – and to hot coffee and cold cereal served with the Sunday paper on the porch. Later, I treated my girls to a trip to the bookstore where we got a stack of books and some delicious frozen drinks. I came home and read for an hour – fiction, nothing for school – then enjoyed take-out Chinese food with each of us on our favorite spot on the couch, watching a geeky Marvel Comics movie that we all enjoyed.

On Sunday, I still missed my Mom, but, for whatever reason – the dandelions, the Frappuccino, the scallion pancakes – I was able to also revel in being a Mom. 

This is my Slice of Life this week. Read slices from others here.