Mother’s Day Minus My Mother

This post will be rather short I’m thinking, because it’s a hard topic for me to think about right now, but it fits what’s coming up, so here I go. This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day and as many of you know, I lost my mom back at the tail end of March. Mother’s day is the second big occasion/holiday where we have had to celebrate without her (first being Easter which was the day after we lost her). While everyone is out celebrating with their mom’s, giving them gifts, cards, taking them to lunch, etc. we will most generally be putting flowers on her grave, wishing for one more of everything you could imagine and so much more with her. This will be the first Mother’s Day where we can’t give her a big hug and tell her we love her. Yes, it will be extremely hard, but it’s just the first of many.

There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t thought about her, haven’t wanted to confide in her, or to hear her voice. I strive daily to make her proud. Growing up, being told I looked like my mother didn’t hold as much value as it does now. I thank the Lord that when I look in the mirror and at the picture shown above, I can see her in me. I remember growing up dreading looking like her. I most especially didn’t want to be blessed with her hair. (For those who don’t know, my mom’s hair was curly on the top layer and the bottom layer was bone straight, this was completely natural.) Now I yearn to be like her in every aspect of my life. To raise my children like she raised me and my siblings. To have as much Faith in God as she did. To love my husband as she loved my dad. If I can achieve being just half the woman she was, I can say I lived a pretty successful life.

Even though losing her has brought a ton of bad things; hurt, sorrow, grief and pain and our lives have had to mold around a world without her, there is some good too. I am stronger for what we’ve been put through, we all are even though some days it doesn’t seem like it. Even though I know she is pain free now and in a MUCH better place, doesn’t necessarily cause the humongous hole in our lives to just vanish overnight. I know it will take time and things won’t ever be the same again, but it has drawn our family closer together. We all have stepped up in some way to fill the mother role in each other’s lives.

 

This mother’s day, I will choose to focus on the good though, despite all the bad. I will choose to remember all the good times, all the advice and guidance she gave me (whether I wanted it or not). All the late night talks, all the laughter we shared. The ability to comfort me when I was feeling down. Spending time with her at craft shows like she did with her mom and I could go on.

 

I wish I could thank her for everything she did for me, and you can bet when I see her again someday, I’m going to thank her for molding me into the woman, wife and mother that I am today the best that I can.

 

How was your first Mother’s Day without your mom? How did you celebrate? Please let me know in the comments below.