The first Mother's Day without my Mom

When I was a kid, I loved Mother's Day.  Usually at church I would sing with the other Primary kids songs such as "Whenever I hear the song of a bird," "Mother, I love you," and "I often go walking."  We would make her breakfast in bed and do the dishes.  We always made her a cake and sang, "Happy Mother's Day to You" to the tune of Happy Birthday.

Mother's Days became hard when I longed for children of my own.  For several years Aaron and I tried to have children, but I, for some reason, couldn't maintain a pregnancy.  I had 3 miscarriages before I was successfully able to have children.  Mother's Days were kind of an awkward day at church when every mother was asked to stand up and receive a flower.  It was hard to be publicly reminded that I didn't have what I wanted most.

I was finally blessed with children.  Yay!  Mother's Day finally had the meaning for me that I wanted it to have.  But some years the day just didn't play out the way I thought it should. I remember one year in particular that I knew Aaron had completely forgotten.  I knew the days leading up to Mother's Day that he had no clue it was coming up.  On the actual day, it was obvious that he didn't remember.  My oldest was only 2 at the time and Audrey was only 3 months old, so the kids were too little to know.  I called my mom around 10 in the morning to wish her a happy Mother's Day.  Aaron was in the same room and you should have seen his face!  He rushed to the kitchen and popped some Eggo waffles in the toaster and then presented them to me with a "Happy Mother's Day!"  I kind of rolled my eyes and begrudgingly ate the waffles.

He pretended the entire rest of the day that he had remembered.  I called him on it later.  He claimed he remembered.  After all, he had even made me breakfast!  Ha!  I said, let me guess, you remembered when you heard me call my mom.  He said yes, but then he remembered, so that counted.  I was so mad.

I called my mom the next day and complained to her about it.  She patiently listened, but then told me that I had the meaning of the day all wrong.  "Mother's Day is about your own mother, and that's it.."  She said that it is nice to be celebrated, but it had more to do with how I celebrated my own mother rather than how I had been celebrated by my husband.  She was right, and I realized how many years I had felt that Mother's Day was so crappy because I wasn't able to have kids, or because it didn't turn out how I had liked.  I felt like a selfish 2 year old who had expected Mother's Day to be like another birthday and decided that from then on out to have no more expectations for myself and to only celebrate my own mother.  Anything else that is done for me is just icing on the cake.

It's funny how we as a society feel about Mother's Day.  On one hand you have me, who when I couldn't have kids didn't really enjoy Mother's Day.  I know this is true of my sister, Lara too.  Then on the other hand there are women who hate it for an entirely different reason.  I recently was talking to a friend who has several children and claimed she always spent Mother's Day crying in the car outside of church because she couldn't bear to go inside and hear all the talks doting on mothers.  She felt she didn't deserve it and that she was a terrible mother.  The day made her feel inadequate because she didn't think she measured up as a good mother.

Changing my perspective to just celebrate my own mom made Mother's Day just like it was when I was a child.  And it was great.  But this year my mom is not here.  This will be the first Mother's Day without her.  And I have admittedly felt like now Mother's Day will truly be hollow.  No mother to celebrate.

 It helped me to recently learn this year that the founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, never even had children.  She didn't do it for herself.  She established Mother's Day to celebrate her own mother, who was deceased. She too was a bereaved daughter just trying to celebrate the wonderful woman that her mom was. She wore a white carnation because that was her mother's favorite flower.  She had white carnations delivered to the local churches.

After a matter of years it was declared a national holiday and was taken over by the floral and card industries.  She hated everything it had become.  She lived out the rest of her days trying to abolish it and said, "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit."  And of greeting cards she said, "A maudlin, insincere printed card or ready-made telegram means nothing except that you’re too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone else in the world.” She also said, “Any mother would rather have a line of the worst scribble from her son or daughter than any fancy greeting card.”

I happen to whole heartedly agree.  So I owe a huge thank-you to Anna Jarvis for helping me face the first Mother's Day without my mom.  Today my husband and children made me breakfast in bed.  It was eggs Benedict.  They carefully brought the plate and juice upstairs and into my room with the most excited looks on their faces.  They presented me with the sweetest and best gifts I have ever received.  Hand prints and a home made card from Camden.  And little hearts cut out of construction paper from Audrey with Xs and Os on them for Hugs and Kisses.  She then gave me real hugs and kisses.  Patrick gave me a bag of chocolate.  And Aaron gave me a little sign that says "Well Behaved Women Rarely make history."  

And now for the rest of the day I will remember my mom.  I will play the slide show of her that my brother made.  Aaron gave me a lilac candle the other day because I had asked for it.  What he didn't know was that I asked for it because lilacs were one of my mom's favorites.  Today I will burn that candle and sing "whenever I touch a velvet rose or walk by a lilac tree."  And I will reach out to all the other bereaved daughters and sons that I know of and let them know that I am thinking of them today.  I am sure that I will probably cry a lot today too.  And I am happy about that.  That means that I loved. That means that my mom was freaking amazing.  Amazing enough to grieve for.  I love you mom.  Happy Mother's Day.