Mother's Day

Have I talked about Mother's Day before? I dunno. All of it is blending together into a mixed up soup.

My mother passed away suddenly in June of 1995, just a few days after Father's Day and about two weeks after my older sister's high school graduation. I was 16.

In early years, I had no idea how to escape Mother's Day. It's everywhere and it felt like there was no place to go to be away from it. I didn't know how to honor her or deal with it at all. Then in February of 2000 I gained a stepmother. I was 21 at the time and the only one in the family still in school. My sister was living overseas and engaged, my two new stepbrothers were older than her and starting families of their own. I was an adult, but still in college and the only one in the family who ever lived with them for extended periods of time.I lived with them in multiple month stretches a couple of times after graduating from college but never longer than six months. The final stretch was over the 2003-4 holiday season when I was 25.

I never knew how to deal with Mother's Day any of those years. I had a complicated relationship with my stepmother who was a nice lady but never really understood nuance when it comes to family relationships. (She passed away in February of 2016 and is missed.) I also lost both of my grandmothers before the age of 2 and never really understood extended family holidays. I still don't, if I'm honest. My extended family was...well...extended.

My own journey to motherhood was longer than I would have liked. I didn't go through a protracted battle with infertility that many friends did (I know someone whose first child was the 6th IVF attempt, which makes the time I spent waiting for James to be conceived very minor.) It took some trying with both of my kids to get there, we never got pregnant right away, but both of them came about in their own time. Mother's Day while trying to get pregnant is not fun at all. And then my first little guy arrived seven weeks early and I spent my first mother's day as a NICU mom. That was actually a really lovely day. He was stable and the nurse kicked my husband and I out for the afternoon and we went garage sale-ing.

So it's complicated. My mother has been gone a very long time, but I'm seeing a lot of friends now dealing with fresh grief. I don't have any advice for them. The only way around is through. 

Do I still miss her? Of course. Do holidays and her birthday send me into avoidance spirals like they once did? They don't. Time heals. It's not in the way you expect. It doesn't make the loss or the grief disappear. It just sands down the rough edges of them and makes remembering a thing that makes you smile more than sob. Smile through tears, perhaps. 

I'm now in the sticky syrupy wake you up with waffles stage of Mother's Day. My husband does a great job of getting kids up to get breakfast and they gifted me a new firepit for the patio which James managed to keep a secret. And perhaps the best gift of all, he cleaned my desk off so I have a real workspace in my office again, which means SO MUCH. It's where I am now and I wouldn't trade it.

What have I learned? Family is complicated. Dolly Parton has a line in Steel Magnolias that is "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." There's rarely all good and all bad...good and bad and meidocre and frustrating and joyful get thrown in a blender and that's family. The best you can do is keep loving the heck out of people even though putting your heart out there also means it will hurt a lot when the people near you hurt or leave you. But that is infinitely better than being guarded about it. I don't think true happiness is really possible because the only way to understand what happiness is is to hurt...a lot...and go through it. I sound like a greeting card. 

So I love these children who make me crazy and I love their sticky hugs and their crazy messes and all the gross stuff they bring with them. I also love their dad through it all although I swear to God if he leaves a greasy sponge in the bottom of the sink again so help me. And that...that is family. And it's wonderful to have a family.

Media consumption: I read the most beautiful book. It's called More to the Story and it's an adaptation of Little Women starring four contemporary Muslim sisters living in Atlanta. I'm also reading Once Upon and Eid which is a book of short stories about the Muslim holidays of Eid for kids. I kind of want to buy this book and put it in the winter holiday collection even though Eid moves through entire year.

I've also just finished season 3 of Growing Pains on DVD from the library. I couldn't honestly tell you why. 1988...was a long time ago. But I loved TV reruns as a kid and there's something soothing about that show. If quaint. And I can pretend Kirk Cameron never went crazy and Josh Duggar never existed.

Today I'm grateful for my kids, sticky hugs, a clean workspace, being a mom, mother's day gifts made in school, books, screen time, family time, and love. And grief. I'm grateful for grief.