Mother’s
Day is going to be so difficult for you.
Well, yes, of course. And no, not really.
Mother’s Day will be painful not because I cannot hand deliver flowers and a card to my mom, but simply because it is
another Sunday without my mom here with us. Another day I cannot share a joke or
grumble that she is talking way too loud or watch her frantically hail down the
ice cream truck with the kids. Another day that I cannot show off my new duvet
cover and ask if she thinks that it brightens up the room. A trivial subject matter,
but something she would have wanted to share her opinions about.
There are times that I am so overwhelmed that my mom is
no longer here with me that I can barely catch my breath. Then there are
moments when I have to remind myself that she is gone. I arrive home to a blinking
light on my machine and my first thought is that it’s her. I leave a doctor’s
appointment with my kids and I instinctively pick up my phone to deliver a
detailed report. I drive by the train station where I would pick her up and for
a brief moment I am compelled to stop the car and wait for her. The image of
her clumsily climbing off the train and insisting that the conductor wave to
her grandsons is so ingrained in my head that it feels like it is happening at
that very moment.Often during her visits she would insist on being driven to TJ Maxx or Michael’s or some other store where she would proceed to buy a few tchotchkes for her grandchildren. Sometimes I would smile at the cute purchases; other times I would bemoan the lack of space to store these random items. Now I am just so grateful that we have these little items all over the house to remember her by. A small statue of a boy playing baseball. Puppets in the shapes of vegetables. The easy button from Staples. A Thomas alarm clock. An abundance of garbage trucks and dump trucks and race cars. A stationery box for my son where she inscribed the words, “A special box for all the special things you will collect in your lifetime. You will need many more boxes.”
On this Mother’s Day, like every other day since my
mom’s passing, I will take deep breaths, shed a few tears and hopefully laugh a
little. And I will try my best to resist hiding under my bright white duvet
cover.