Mother's Day, like every holiday in the past few years, is a bittersweet day for me.  On the one hand, it is wonderful to bask in the love of my children and their gifts they have made.  Little cards filled with misspelled words written in crayon, and their handprints making butterflies or flowers.  I know how blessed I am with all my little people running around.

 On the other hand, it is a stark reminder of what has been lost.   A loss that I thought I fully comprehended when it first happened, but as time goes on, I realize in little ways how much bigger it really is.  Little things like having no one to call when my daughter first cut her own hair, or when my younger son dumped powdered sugar all over the kitchen.  No one now waits anxiously to hear how it went after I take the children to the doctor.  My children lost their grandmother, some of them before they were even born.  I lost my mom.

My mom wasn't perfect by any means.  Heck, there were ways in which she screwed up big time raising us.  But, at the end of her life, as her daughter I can say with confidence, that she did the best she could.  I can only hope my children can someday say the same thing of me.   

The one thing my mother really taught me above all else is how to be strong, how to be a survivor.  She was dealt a crappy deal in life some might say.  A single mother to two little girls at the age of 25, and then she got cancer about 5 years later.  She tried to never let on how hard things really were.  I remember catching her crying in her room once, but that was rare.  We grew up knowing things were hard, but she protected us from knowing just how hard.  She would quietly go without dinner some nights just to make sure we had enough.  She hid just how sick she really was for a long time, so as not to scare us since we were still so young.  

 I never got along with her really well as a child.  I was more like my father in demeanor (and looks), and we struggled at times to live under the same roof.  It was not because she compared me to my father, it was just that the two personalities did not get along.  I ended up moving out and eloping at the ripe old age of 18, and got pregnant right around my 19th birthday.  I was terrified what my mother would say.  She surprised me though, and became my biggest supporter through my pregnancy.  When I first saw her after my husband had called her to tell her, (I had been too chicken to be the one to call) her first words were not chastising or angry.  All she wanted to know was how I felt, and there was nothing but concern in her eyes.

 As it turned out, me having children gave us something in common.  Something to bond over.  She was a natural at being a grandmother from the start.  She was even in the delivery room, as my doula.  She did wonderful, and as soon as my son was born, she was in love.  I was thankful she was there, because I was pretty out of it from the drugs and the shock of the delivery.  She was there when my daughter was born as well, and I know she would have been there for the birth of the younger two if she could. 

We learned in 2003 that her cancer was back, in a new form.  She had cervical cancer before, and had radiation treatments for it.  Over the years, a tumor resulting from the radiation treatment had been quietly and slowly growing on her lower spine.  It wasn't until the back pain became severe that she got it checked out and they found the tumor.  Long story short, it was inoperable with it's location, it was malignant, and the doctor's didn't know what to do.  Not long after that I became pregnant with child number three.  I ended up in the hospital with preterm labor, and my mom came to stay with me, as my husband was deployed.  While she was there I could tell she did not feel well.  She went to our house one day to rest, and I didn't hear from her for two days.  She finally called me from my house, needing an ambulance.  

She was hospitalized in a hospital ten minutes from mine, and the news wasn't good.  I gave birth to a baby boy three days later.  He was six weeks early and not breathing well, so he was put into the NICU.  As soon as I could, I got pictures of him, emailed them to his father, and then printed them up and went to see my mom.  She was motivated by those pictures to get well enough to leave the hospital.  No one thought it was possible, but she did.  She wanted to see her new grandson.  She was in a wheelchair by now, because the pain had become to much to walk anymore, but that didn't stop her from going into the NICU to hold the baby.  Arrangements were made for her to go home, with me promising to email her as many pictures as humanly possible.  

We got a call at the end of October saying it would be soon.  The doctors didn't expect her to last more than two weeks.  My husband got emergency leave from Iraq, and we made the trip to see her.  She was in a hospice, although she declared she was not ready to die yet and wanted to go home.  I agreed to look after her, with the doctors telling me it would most likely only be for a week, and then she would need to come back.  She was very adamant about not dying at home, as she knew what a mess that could be and didn't want us to have to put up with it.  

We brought her home, and the days passed.  She would get irrational and demanding at times, the tumor cells had mastisized to her brain.  She was completely bedridden, and still very adament that she was not dying yet.  I will not get into what it took to care for her, as it is still scary and hard stuff to think about.  People would ask me why I was doing it, they would say it was too much for me.  My answer? She's my mom.  That's why.  

My mother was very bent on getting a last holiday season with everyone.  Despite those doctors' two week prediction, she lived more than two months.  She got to have one more Thanksgiving and Christmas, just like she wanted.  She died January 3, 2005.   

I miss my mom.  For a long time that was hard for me to admit for some reason.  Maybe part of me thought it wasn't strong to admit that.  But now I will, even though it's still a bit hard.  I miss her.  I miss calling her about every little thing with the kids, and her eager to hear all of it.  I miss having someone to call when I had questions about being a mother.  I even miss the annoyed calls I would get from her if she hadn't heard from me in a few days.  And I deeply miss seeing her with my children.  It is not fair, they should have gotten more time with her, and she with them.  Especially with my youngest, who was born a year and a half after she died.  Part of me would like nothing more than to see my mother with my youngest on her lap.  And to ask her if the baby looks as much like me as everyone says she does.

I believe I will see her again one day, and I hope that she can see the kids from time to time where she is.  I just wish there was a phone.