Mother's Day

In a few days it will be May.  In Western New York, springtime is a long awaited happy and fun time, after what is usually a fairly long winter and sometimes not so great spring.  The effect of the warm and mild weather with long days of daylight until 9:00 o'clock PM on one's activities and mood is hard to imagine unless you live in an area of four seasons.  It truly is a tangible experience!

I am like everyone - so excited, relieved, and happy for the nice weather.  However, I have to say, that along with May comes the inescapable holiday of... Mother's Day.

I actually recall going through the first Mother's Day after the loss of my own mother, more than ten years ago.  Like the phenomenon I have written about so many times before, it seems that during these times, our perceptions play cruel jokes on us.  I remember that I tried to shop for a card for my mother-in-law the day before, and as I started reading the cards was barely able to contain myself.  I looked around the store, and suddenly the whole store was mocking me with roses, pink and red items, and pretty little things to buy for your mother.  I remember leaving the store, and when I got in the car, the radio announcer was talking about Mothers' Day.  I went home in tears, and am embarrassed to admit, I think I called my poor mother-in-law to tell her I was sorry and wouldn't be buying her a card, when I had a complete melt-down and started complaining that Mothers' Day was a stupid holiday and who the heck "invented it" anyway!  Little did I know then, that there would be greater challenges to face.

Of all the holidays since Erik's death, I am least successful in finding a way to cope with Mothers' Day.  There are no other things to focus on such as trees and gifts for Christmas, or dinners and flowers for Easter, all to be shared with a number of cherished loved ones in our lives.  Or for many, Christmas and Easter have great spiritual meaning and can be embraced for the comfort that they may bring.  Unfortunately, for those of us who have lost a child, there is no escaping the singular purpose of Mothers' Day: to pay tribute to motherhood. 

Motherhood, a word that imports the strongest of emotions, the greatest variety of circumstances, and a universality and longevity that surpasses all other human relationships...motherhood.  The closest connection one human being can have to another.  Unconditional and undying love.

I have often said that I respect and reach out to all those who have lost someone in any relationship to suicide - that while people say losing a child is the most difficult experience or loss a person should have to go through, I don't believe it should be held apart from other losses...
but...
for this one day, I take it back!  For this one day, it is the worse kind of loss, the most unimaginable, the cruelist twist of fate.  I have found no way to make it better or easier, and now I already dread it, two weeks away.

I don't know what it would be like, nor can I imagine, what it might be like to lose an only child to suicide, or to any other death.  My heart goes out to those who have lost their only child. 

I do have my other son, as well as my grandchildren.  But to be honest, it seems like this just makes the angst of the day all the worse.  For while there is no way to avoid being consumed with the thought that I am the mother of a son who is lost, at the same time, my other son is desperately trying to make it up to me, to remind me that I do still have a child, I still am a mother, and please find joy in that.  I know that if it weren't for him, and because my own mother is no longer living, I could easily hide away for the day and just pretend it didn't exist, or at least try to.  Or I could just for this one day regress and wallow in my pain and sorrow, that I am a  mother who's child left her by his own hand.  But I can't.

And I won't.  I will find that mix, that strength of all that is bittersweet, and celebrate the day with my son.  I will thank God that I have him.  I will appreciate him even more than I might have under "normal circumstances".  He will perhaps be more kind and thoughtful than most sons would be on Mothers' Day under "normal circumstances".  But, we are now like this all the time, and could get by without the special day.

So, I realize my attitude is very skewed and "not normal".  But I can't help it.  I hate Mothers' Day.  And who invented it anyway?  And I wish the stores and radio would just shut-up about it.  It's going to be a long two weeks.  Stupid Mothers' Day.