It was the card aisle at Ingles that reminded me. Not of Mother’s Day – I’d bought my card weeks ago – but how much it can hurt.
Another mother was standing on the same aisle as me staring at cards but not pulling any out.
I remembered the homemade cards with handprints and letters written backward with the simple words, “I love you Mom” across a page colored with disproportionate people, grass, a house with a chimney, and smoke even though it was May.
The white Styrofoam cups with potting soil and a plant of some sort filled my windows until they didn’t anymore.
She stared at me. I stared at her.
Sometimes, Mother’s Day hurts.
The Hallmark Channel makes it so believable – flowers, gifts, chocolates, phone calls. The expressions of gratitude and love. The generations of mothers in one photograph, all blended in perfect harmony.
The reality is that most of us are looking through lenses of brokenness and what we perceive as failures.
Every mother knows that feeling of intense joy to love and nurture a young life. Every mother knows that feeling of intense sadness when something goes wrong.
Like the fire that we gather around to roast marshmallows or warm our hands – it can also be the fire that burns and leaves us in gut-wrenching pain.
So many avenues of hurt – whether it is the loss of a child, loss of a mom or grandmother, painful childhood, estranged relationship with an adult child, infertility, miscarriage, abortion, empty nest, or emptiness.
There’s no real formula to getting through the seasons that leave us longing for something we used to have. Sometimes our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears, but I’ve learned those ears aren’t deaf, they are listening to what I have to say.
Through listening to our prayers and requests, God shows us His participation in our lives – not to fix us but to be with us.
Grief holds a strong power from the loss of someone or something we once held close, but it is part of the cost of loving and experiencing life.
I found her in the parking lot – the woman who stood on the card aisle with me. I handed her a yellow envelope I’d just purchased. The card was covered in daisies on the outside and blank on the inside.
She looked up at me and smiled.
“Sometimes there really aren’t any words,” I said. “I just wanted you to know that I understand.”
If today isn’t a day of celebration for you, redirect what your expectations are and mother yourself. Take a walk. Soak in the bathtub. Eat some ice cream. Watch a funny movie. Paint something. Pick flowers. Cook something new. Be kind to you.
Take the time to honor yourself, accept your pain, recognize your humanness, and look forward to the future.
