Who thought up this holiday anyway? My Dad was convinced that it was 'made up by Hallmark" and refused to let us celebrate it. We had to pick flowers for our Mom out of the garden and sneak cards to her because Papa just didn't like the idea of it. I have no idea why; he wasn't a bad guy, he just got a bug up his ass about it and there it stayed.
Needless to say, I have no idea when Father's Day is.
But I think the fact that we had to kind of go out of our way to give Moma something on Mother's Day meant more to her than if we'd taken her out to brunch and did the whole big thing so many people do. I know our Mother really thought our way of showing her we loved her on Mother's Day was special and I always thought I'd have something special too when I became a mom.
Until I was diagnosed with cancer and I could not have kids. Then all of a sudden every year Mother's Day became agony for me. And it's gotten worse in many ways since becoming a step-mom to four kids, all teens now. Their biological Mom cannot stand to have them acknowledge me as a parent and they've all been trained not to think of me that way - even though I've been part of their lives for seven years now.
And so here's another Mother's Day. Where I'm not the mother.
A lot of women are in a similar boat today. People who's mother's have died; who are estranged from their children; who are infertile; whose children have died or worse: people who's mother's (or children) were abusive or destructive... so many people for whom today is not a happy occasion. I've cried through a dozen years' of mother's days and I have no wisdom to offer the women who are suffering through today except to say, you're not alone. There's a lot of us out here, just getting through the day, same as you.
Maybe in some ways my Father was right. For a lot of people this day that is supposed to be about thankfulness becomes about loss; maybe on some level that was what Papa objected to. I know he hated the marketing though; its why he felt it wasn't a 'real' holiday, that Madison Avenue just wanted an excuse to get people to spend their money and its so much worse today than it was when I was a kid. The day has been turned into an extravaganza of sales, gifts, brunches, flowers, celebrations...and every ad just punches you in the gut again with your own loss.
But, its almost over now, Thank God.