I feel almost obligated to reflect on Mother's Day for several reasons: 1. I had a little shock when I realized my mother has been gone for almost eight years. That's a quarter of my life that I've lived without her. 2. This is only my 2nd Mother's Day as a mother, and sometimes I'm still shocked to find myself in this grown-up role. 3. I'm expecting baby number 2 in just a few weeks, and I can't help but think about how my own role as a mother is about to change in a big way.
I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. On Saturday, we went on a hike. I impressed myself by going about 3 miles being 35 weeks pregnant, and I was doubly impressed by my not-yet-2-year-old, who hiked about half of the distance, riding on Daddy's shoulders the rest of the way. The weather was beautiful, and we all enjoyed ourselves.
On Mother's Day, my husband let me sleep in. After waking with Aleida, he fixed me a spectacular breakfast of Eggs Florentine, complete with a made up concoction he called "Pregnant Wife Mimosas," which consisted of sparkling pear juice and orange juice. I think I prefer the taste of this non-alcoholic version to the real thing. We ended the day with a delicious and elaborate dinner made by Dave and his sister in honor of me and my mother-in-law. What a lovely day.
So as I started to reflect on this Mother's Day, I was thinking that if Mother's Day were a pie, or a glass, it would be 3/4 complete. I am almost the mother of two now, which makes up half the pie. The third full piece I attribute to having won the mother-in-law jackpot. I am very close to my mother-in-law. We are good friends, and she has become a strong mother figure to me and an excellent grandmother to Aleida. Celebrating with her was meaningful and special. The only missing piece to my day was, obviously, my own mother. But maybe just giving her a quarter of the pie isn't fair. Her role in my life was so great, maybe she should be represented by at least half.
As I mulled over this metaphor, however, I couldn't quite make it feel right. Perhaps it's because my day didn't feel incomplete. I didn't cry. I thought fondly of my mother, wished for her to be with me, looked at some pictures and desired to share more holidays with her, but the day didn't leave me wanting. I felt a glow in the presence of my loving husband, my entertaining daughter (who is turning into quite a ham), my own growing belly and my husband's family who feel like my own. I was completely happy.
Today, the day after, I have been thinking about this. I have in turn felt guilty, then sad, then content. I think I felt guilty because I didn't feel more of a mom-shaped hole on the day reserved for mothers. I didn't cry for my loss, which for all purposes can be seen as extremely untimely and unfair. Once the guilt passed, I felt sad when I realized my mom has been gone for 8 years and to realize, again, that she is not coming back. It's interesting how after a person dies, you know this fact in your head: Death is final. But it's also interesting how the reality of this hits you at different times. Sometimes death doesn't seem so permanent, or maybe y
ou just don't think about it enough for it to hit you. At other times, the finality of it washes over and paralyzes you, if only for a split second. I had a moment like that today. My daughters will only know my mother in the abstract way that my pictures and stories and memories piece her together. She will never be a complete person to them. Teachers and mothers of friends and characters in books will be more real and meaningful in their lives. I know this because I never knew my mom's mom, and she is just a series of pictures and funny stories I heard throughout my life. She is like abstract art; I know it's special, but I don't fully understand its essence.
These thoughts eventually settled to a kind of contentment. My glass is full. I accept that I can be complete and happy even while missing my mother and feeling the void left by her absence. My daughters, mother-in-law, and the other important women in my life certainly don't replace my own mother. They cannot because they are separate. Without these positive influences,
however, Mother's Day might be full of tears and sadness. But it is hard to imagine any other version of your life. I accept that my mom is gone even though I don't like it. I still grieve for the loss of her in my life. I grieve for what could've been. I grieve that she never got to be
a grandmother and that my kids will not truly know her. Sometimes I feel this so strongly that it is like a ghost passing through me, and I can't quite catch my breath as I think about it. The feeling passes, but the moment of full-blown grief is always overpowering. The moments remind me how I want to celebrate her life and her memory as it lives on in me and in the next generation. I think about how Aleida was born on her birthday. Regardless of what I (or anyone else) believe about the order of the universe, that is a special connection. It means something, and it always will.
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