I remember my Mother every year on Mother’s Day. I don’t get to visit her anymore or pick up the phone to call or send a card or buy her flowers or make her something special. But my Mom was certainly a very special mother.

The first year without Mom on Mothers Day was pretty rough. I bought her a card without realizing what I was doing and almost took it back, instead I took to the cemetery and put it by her gravestone. I know it sounds silly – but it worked for me. There were times throughout that first year that I would pick up the phone to call and then hang up – a couple times the phone even started ringing before I hung up. Once, I just put my finger on the button that the phone sits on and I talked into the phone like a little girl playing with a phone on the wall of her kitchen set. I’m sure anyone would have thought I was crazy – but hey – sometimes it works to be a kid again, right? Why get stressed out about the way you grieve or mourn the loss of the presence of your mother. Oh – her hugs, yes I wanted one of her good hugs, so I hugged myself and closed my eyes and pretended it was mom. I went and bought daffodils for myself because that’s what she had sent me the prior Mother’s Day. I called my sister and wished her Happy Mother’s Day. The second year I wrote her a letter, tucked it in an envelope and put it in a drawer – later that year I shredded it – it was just between mom and me – not for anyone else to see.

In time you get used to Mother’s Day without a Mom, but you never forget your mother. Sometimes you find other women who help to fill the void, but no one can really replace your mother. And that’s ok, it’s alright – eventually everything’s gonna be alright. Be kind and gentle to yourself, just like your mother would be to you if you lost your best friend. It’s ok, it’s alright, everything’s gonna be ok.

I remember the day my mother told me I would always miss her like it was yesterday. The first year I cried, the second year I sighed and eventually I found myself smiling through the memories because it’s ok, it’s alright, everything’s gonna be ok, there’s no need to be stressing out, and many reasons to rejoice in all the wonderful memories I have . . kneeding dough to make fresh bread, going to school with her in the one room classroom, cooking her breakfast in bed, making mud pies together and letting them dry on the back steps, picnics and popsicles, cloud gazing and day dreaming, sewing, the waffles she made us, the time our swimming suits caught on fire while we were on summer vacation – (we hung them to dry over the wood stove), shopping, the weekend we spent with my sister when her house was getting painted – what a hoot that was. Our first day of the month days together – sharing stories of faith and hope, praying together for her family, listening to favorite stories of good times spent with some of her dearest friends, listening to her hopes for her children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren . . . everything’s going to be ok, it’s all going to turn out right . . . God is in control, she said, He always has been and always will be.

And when I slip into grief, as sometimes happens when you miss those you love, I remember that the Lord promised he would not leave his disciples as orphans, and how he had said that everyone who does the will of God is his mother and brother and sister, and finally I remember the words he spoke from the cross . . . “here is your mother.” It’s good to have a faith community, a place where you can look around and see that we have many mothers who will nurture us in the absence of our own, if we will only let them . . .

Wishing everyone a Very Blessed Mothers Day . . .