And I'm feeling... torn.
When I was young this holiday seemed easy. Raised by a single mom and my grandmother in a family and culture where the women were always the ones to stay, raise, work, show-up; mother's day was an easy YES. It was brunch and heartfelt cards and gratitude.
Two years ago, after a long stretch of our strong relationship deteriorating, my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I was relieved that my mom hadn't intentionally turned her back on me. I was devastated that there was no going back. We had begun the process of a long goodbye. Although diagnosed a few months after the birth of my second baby, I began to really lose my mom during my first pregnancy. Her erratic behavior and changed self was revealed most painfully as she told me 'she couldn't wait any longer' and got on a plane to head home just hours before I went into labor. Unclear at the time what had happened to my over-involved and dedicated mother it was the most painful and heartbreaking moment of my life. Alone across the ocean and country from any family, feeling abandoned and confused, I gave birth in the midst of feeling the unfathomable pain of the crumbing of my relationship with my only parent while becoming one myself. I felt both the greatest love and the greatest emptiness I could fathom simultaneously. There is now a limit on the time I have with my mother on this earth. Yet, so much of her is already gone. She still knows who I am and my children's names but her ability to mother has left her. I walk a fine line of working to give my mom the very best care possible while ignoring the pain and bitterness in still needing a mother I will never again have but whose body stands in-front of me.
At a young age my mother taught me the power of a community of women. Surrounded constantly by strong women as a young girl and seeing the female friendships that filled her life, I have been blessed to be surrounded by female friendships that not only sustain me but transform me. A woman once told me that she 'couldn't stand women, they were horrible' and I was blindsided. She is the only woman I have ever met that I struggle deeply to find compassion for and after hearing her philosophy on women it seemed clear why.
See, you, my sisters, are my kindness. You are my heart. You are my continual reminder of grace and redemption. You have taught me to love my body, my annoying children, and exercise. You are the other side of the conversation that most new mamas would have with their own mother. You fix my hair and tell me when it's time to get new clothes. You hold my babies and discipline them. You have fed me, celebrated me, and more times than I can ever count; cried with me.
I was afraid after leaving college that I would never make easy female friends again. While it hasn't been easy it has happened. And somehow, in that way God does things that don't make sense till later, almost all of them have mothers who have died. The others have impossibly complicated relationships with their moms. It seemed odd to me at first, this collection of women I had who had become mamas after theirs had died or whose moms didn't know how to love them in the way they needed. Then I realized that sometimes your mom looks like your best friend.
As we walk through this day social media has been a glaring reminder of the emptiness that echoes in this Sunday. There is a plethora of profile picture changes with beautiful people I adore and their mamas. Yet, when I look closer, there is a clear absence of that from my dearest friends. They may post a picture of their mama that I've seen before in a frame on a table on their wedding day. Or there may be nothing, because it's all too painful. We are not the people that take girls trips with our moms; some because it's impossible, others because there is high possibility our therapy bills would be astronomical if we did.
We are the mamas who woke up this morning and refused to do nothing today because not being there for our kids is our most painful reality and biggest fear. We are the mamas that texted each other with a simple 'I understand' and 'You are doing this'. We are the mamas who desperately tried to get our children to take a picture with us because we hope someday our children will want to update their space-age social media with a picture of us all together and it won't cause them pain or heartbreak. We pray we are raising children for which this holiday is anything but complicated. We take extreme precaution when it comes to our health, screenings, and our words. We are the mamas who want to do it different and the same and possibly pass over this day all together except when we get to have some quiet moments with our children who redeem it all.
In a few hours I will pick my mom up for the second time today to celebrate. She quite possibly will not remember that we were together just a few hours ago. I will take pictures with her that I fear will appear at her funeral and choke back tears as she opens her gifts not knowing how many more I will buy or she will open. Then, after she is back home safe in her assisted living community I will call a girlfriend, cry, and lament the complicated ways that this day fills us up and destroys us. The ways that motherhood is our greatest joy and mirrors our most painful losses.
Today is merely a marker of that pain. For me it is about the loss of my mother. For others the loss of their child or the children they were never able to bear. For some that I love it is the reminder that the bodies they were born with that did not match their hearts or minds can be changed in many ways but never so that they can be pregnant. For some mamas it is the pain of doing it single-handed and planning their own mother's day. For still others it is the heartbreaking reality that a child they gave up for adoption is celebrating with another mama. For others that there is another mama who carried their baby grieving while you receive the cards and flowers.
Sisters, you are not alone. Today you are heavy on my heart and I am grateful for the community you are that has knit me in so closely that no matter how hard and complicated this all is, I do not fall.
