It’s Mother’s Day and although it is a day I celebrate with my kids, I can’t help but miss my own mom. She has been gone for over twenty years and it seems as though with each passing year, I have more questions I wish she could answer. Whenever I see those posts about who, dead or alive, you would most like to have dinner with, my mom is always at the top of my list.
I wonder how scared she was when she first had to go to work, left alone after my dad died. After all, she was left to raise five small kids on her own, minus a man she referred to as the love of her life. I wonder how she survived the trouble my brother got into as a teenager, and if she could have helped ward off some of the trouble my own son got into during his teen years. I wonder what difference her presence in his life could have made. He was only five when she passed but they loved each other.
I wish she’d gotten to know my daughters and that they’d gotten to know her. I watch my sister, now a new grandmother to two baby girls, and I think how lucky her grandkids are to have her. She gives them the unconditional love that I know my mom would have given to our kids. I see how she delights in everything they do, and can’t help but feel my mom was cheated.
Mother’s Day is filled with love, hope for the future, and memories of the past, but it is also a little bittersweet. I wish my mom had been allowed to stick around longer.
