Mother's Day- bittersweet!

Since the death of my mom, Mother's day has become a bittersweet day for me. While I love the celebration with my husband and children, I miss Mom!

When in the card section this time of year I get an attitude about the cards for mothers because I can't buy them anymore. It seems so weird. I see plaques, t-shirts, and picture frames with mother and keep on moving! Anyone else feel this way?

I must say that prior to Mom's death I was clueless about what women felt when they lost their moms. I mean I would go to the funeral homes, funerals, send cards, flowers, ask them how they were when I saw them, and so on...but I had no idea what they were really going through.

Now, I pretend I have this little club. We are the women who have lost our moms and I have more women in it than I care to. Today I am going out of my way to talk to a few women at church whose Mom's have died, I will call my siblings, and my dear friend whose mom just died in March.

I am grateful for Mom's life and I will share that with her when I visit the cemetery today. What a woman.

Hi Dotsie,

No, you are definitely not alone in the loss of your mom. I feel the same way about the cards. My mom and I used to see who could send the funniest card while I was in school. It made it fun to go
shopping and see what would come in the mail.
Even though I didn't receive phone calls for a long time I also miss those. When she wanted to know how everything was going and the latest news and then would fill me in on all their latest.
Thanks for writing about it and sharing.
Maggie

I lost Mom almost 6 years ago. I have never felt the same since. It is hard to lose anyone, but when your mother dies, you are an orphan no matter how old you are.

I used to send flowers on Mothers' Day to my 7 godmothers, sister-in-law, family friends and several aunts that were special to me. This year, I only have 3 left and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I sent cards, and took one to dinner (my 90 year old great-aunt). I called the other one (my mothers' cousin, really) and wished her a great day. Both of them are ill now and don't really seem very interested in getting anything. I called my SIL (She is older and helped raise my husband, so we always count her in on the Mothers' Day stuff) and sent her a card.

Life right now is so hard. I am so melancholy and with my fathers' sister dying last Friday, I am so sad for my 6 cousins that have lost their mother.

Rambling on, but wishing everyone a happy week and hope you Moms out there had a great day.

Girlfriend....I can totally relate to this!!

Mother's Day is VERY hard for me for several reasons. I hope I can convey to you how I feel and actually post it.......scarry.

First I should say that May 11th is my Birthday. Every 6 years I think it is, I have my birthday on Mother's Day. Thus it was this year. Now I don't want anyone thinking I am ungrateful. I do think things like, how cool it was that I was born on a year when it was on Mother's Day. I also think that I was truely a pain in the butt.....well close enough!! That makes me laugh actually.

However, there are much stronger feelings that seem to drive those good ones deep within. I feel sad every Mother's Day, cause well I lost my momma so long ago. I never got to have her at my First Wedding.....and won't be there for my second if I ever get around to that. I've not been able to just call her on the phone for advice like others do their moms. I was not able to share pain and happiness with her.

See......my mom actually physically died when I was 22 years old. But!! She was severely mentally ill. When I was a child she was emotionally and mentally unavailable to be my mommy. I was taken away from her custody due to her illness when I was 9 years old, only to see her once more for a few hours when I was 18 years old. Oh I still loved and adored her.....we do that naturally ...she is my momma. So anyway, even when I had here alive, she really was not able to be, well like most momma's are. And then to loose her at such a young age.

Well I guess we all experience different but simular pain when it comes to loss. Most especially when it is our very own mother. And yes that makes the holiday tradition of Mother's Day very painful!!

There is one more pain for me, associated with mothers day. Sorry for being so long winded, but I guess this all just needed to come out. For me there is a double duty pain......and that is that I was unable to be a mom. I was not able to have children and I so desperately wanted them.......I wanted the opportunity to love my babies in a way my momma could not do for me. Why truely God never saw fit to make me a mom...I do not know why.......and I don't blame God, I just don't understand, why when there are so many miricles in this world, why I could not just have that one? To give birth. I wish I could know what it is like to feel that baby growing inside me. Then there is all the excitement in getting ready for that special little one to come. Shopping for all the stuff you know? I wanted to experience that closeness and bond that is undenying.....to give a gift to the world with all my love.

So you see.......for me Mother's Day is more close to Bakers Chocolate than Bitter-sweet! I can SO SO relate to the grief associated. I am in your club, Dotsie.

I know no one's loss is any greater or lesser, only a different experience.

Love and Hugs to all of you who experience this kind of pain and grief. I do know that we are some how stronger for surviving it.

Well?? Nuff said......thanks for letting me share such heart felt things with you lovely women.

Goodgirl -- I won't pretend to know what you're feeling -- I'm still blessed to have my mom -- but I do know that being a mother is NOT about giving birth to a baby -- it's about being there at the important times in a person's life.

I don't know you're life -- but Dotsie will be the first one to tell you that being an adoptive mom is no less fullfilling as a birth mom -- and if you aren't in the position to do that -- being a "foster mom" -- volunteer at your local hospital, day cares, local children's home (for kids looking for adoptions) -- being a MOM doesn't have to be about the child you carried for 9 months -- it's being the figure in a child's life that brings stability and love into their life -- even if it's only for 2 hrs a week -- it's all about being someone that someone else looks up to and trusts -- and somehow i think that someone could be you

take all that love and giving that you have inside and share it with the world -- perhaps that's what God's plan for you is all about

and we don't "rattle on" here -- we all just share and care

My mother died Aug 2, 1996. Throughout that first year, I "prepared" myself (as best you can) for all the "firsts" -- 1st Thanksgiving, 1st Christmas, etc to be celebrated without the wonderful mother I had been blessed with. But somehow I forgot one celebration -- Mother's Day. That was the most miserable period that first year. I can tell you one thing -- I DO NOT like being at the top of the Mother Chain! It was probably 3 years before I could bear to go near a greeting card rack that displayed Mother's Day Cards.

I had to force myself to try to enjoy the day for my own children -- but it was difficult. It brought new knowledge of grief -- and how intensely private and personal it is. For the first time I understood the grief and loss my Mother had suffered after the death of her own mother.

Gwinny

I'm part of the "club," too, I'm afraid. I also had a mother who was not able to be my mom for most of my childhood, and even for a good deal of my adulthood as well. She had rotten marriages to my father and stepfather, and that was after suffering many years of depression and other severe emotional problems. We tried to make up for the time lost, but what we should have tried to do was to start fresh. Mom wasn't the kind of person who could really do that, nor was she the kind of person you could really work things out with in a totally honest way most of the time.

Anyway, for a very long time, I hated the whole concept of Mother's Day, Father's Day, and almost all the holidays. I have a double reason to mourn the holidays, as my own relationship with my son and his father became horrible as well. It's taken a long time, but I'm finally able to face most of the holidays minus most of the melancholy.

I'll tell you what, though, ladies... I don't believe that anybody really dies... don't we remember our loved ones, and don't they at least live in our hearts? I would say... and I'm not an expert on getting through grief by any means...that if it would be a comfort to you to buy a Mother's Day Card, one that you surely would have gotten if your Mom was still on earth, you just go right ahead and do it. If folks can dedicate a building on a college campus or a wing of a hospital to someone who has passed on, surely one of us can dedicate a card, a bunch of flowers, or a special meal to someone who has passed on. I, personally, am confident that the person you are missing will get the message. OK, call me Kooky, but I believe this is true.

I dream about my mother all the time, and our interactions is finally peaceful and sane. I have only dreamed about my fatheronce, and the interaction was as sane as it ever got... I believe that these dreams are a gift from God, a way that we reach across the void and make peace with one another.

I pray for my son, even though I have no way to contact him. Sometimes I look at funny cards that I might have gotten for him, were we still in contact with one another. I don't buy them, but I do remember the fun I used to have giving them to him, and how much fun he would have opening that rare piece of mail... and I know that we had at least that connection. It's sort of a way, in my mind, to spiritually keep the door open, just in case we can somehow mend or make peace.

I just don't think that just because someone is absent from my life right now, that they are completely gone from my life. That includes the dead folks I've known....

I did a sort of ritual on my first Mother's Day without my mom (or my son, for that matter). It helped me to find peace in letting go of them in a healthy way. At least, it helped me get through that day without having myself committed! And yes, I do pretty much the same thing with Mother's Day cards that I do with birthday cards and such -- think how much Mom would have liked them. I sort of give them to her in spirit.

Anyway, I hope these ramblings are helpful.

Hugs & Blessings,
Lil

LillianOwl,
Me thinks you are one wise woman.

Aw, Shucks, JawJaw, if you only knew how hard-headed and dense I really am! But then, that just makes for a whole lot of life-lessons!

Hugs & Blessings,
Lil

I can't speak for the hard-headed part, but dense, no mam. You are compassionate and caring just like gwinny, goodgirl, micki, maggie, lionspaw and Ms. D.

Isn't this board just the greatest?v

Lil, Your post about buying cards in honor/memory reminds me of something I did recently.

I had lunch with my mom at the cemetery.

I had planned to sit right there with her, but the weather didn't cooperate, so I sat in the car with my salad, diet soda, and bread, right near her grave stone. I talked to her as though she was in the seat right next to me and it was so therapeutic. Can't wait to do it again.

Mourning takes on many forms!

I know that I feel closets to my one grandma when I am in my garden. SHe loved to garden and was out there every day doing her thing. It will be a year since she died in about a week and I can't wait to take her some tomatoes, green peppers, herbs, and flowers from my garden.

Candice, what a blessing to be able to pick up with her gardening hobby (a perfect place to think about your grandma) ....and on and on it shall go! Maybe one day your grandchildren will think of you in the garden. That's how it all carries on. I love it!