From a Motherless Child on Mothers Day

This is the third Mothers Day I've endured without a mom to celebrate it with. Not a foreign feeling, but today is also a little different. The last two I still had a motherly figure in the form of my grandma. This is the first year that I want to completely ignore today. I don't want it to exist. I have dreaded it for weeks.


 

Growing up you see yourself having decades of family celebrations, holiday dinners, birthdays, bbqs... I always pictured myself similar to my mom. Still having my parents well into my later years. I had the added advantage of a much smaller age gap between my mom and I than she did with her parents. Extra time right?? You envision your relationships with sisters blooming and growing as you enter adulthood.You see yourself bonding with a mother in law and gaining another family.

I can tell you from experience that is is a harsh reality when your vision for yourself crumbles when you are 30. I think I have done an okay job at slowly starting to focus on a drastically different picture for myself. I am happy with what I have been able to accomplish. A lot of times I can think about, and occasionally talk about my mom, and my family with a genuine smile on my face. I am not going to lie though. Days like today I struggle. I wasn't blessed with a compassionate mother in law that could ease the ache. Relationships with sisters are completely based around what I am able to give them... As sad as that is, I am just drained, I have nothing left to give that they want.

 I am happy for my friends celebrating the day, I just don't want to. I'm not there yet, and if I force myself to embrace all the mushy mother filled love that accompanies today, I think it would break me faster than I am willing to find out.

I have had plenty of offers for "surrogate" mothers. I love you all, and appreciate you. But I am not interested. I had the best. I have the role model. I have a mom with the kindest, most tender heart. I have the best friend. I have the model of bravery. She just isn't here anymore. I am happy to continue living with her as my one and only. I am happy to have just the one mom walking silently and invisibly at my side.  

So, I am giving myself today... I am letting myself feel what I need to feel without the pressure of the holiday. I don't need today to remind me what I don't have. Honestly, I think about her every single day... and miss her, and my grandma, every single day.

Today, instead I am choosing to hold onto tight to the things I have been given in the face of loss... The people who deal with me, and love me despite me, every day. Most of the important people in my life right now feel impossibly far away... But I have lost so much already that I am not willing to let go. They are few and far between, but they are the people that recognize that I give a lot... sometimes maybe too much... and they're willing to give back. You know who you are... I thank you, and I love you. 

Hold on Tight to What You've Been Handed.