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Contributing Editor Mir also blogs at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Ty's Toy Box.
Here in the United States, today is about being a mother or having a mother or--for many of us--mourning a lack thereof. What Hallmark has tried to render a day of joy is often so much more complicated than that.
I began my morning as I do just about every Sunday--by checking PostSecret. If you are unfamiliar with this powerful project:
PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.
Today's Mother's Day Edition is just as compelling as previous installments. Perhaps moreso. (If I start quoting, I'll post the entire thing here. Just go check it out.)
Of course, thinking about yearning and conflict as pertains to our mother/child relationships brings me back to our very own BlogHer Jenn Satterwhite, and her ruminations on facing her first Mother's Day without her mom:
Gabriella will race into my room for our snuggle nap. And as she lays her head on my chest to sleep, I am sure it will be one of the sweetest and hardest moments I have had to endure since Mom died. I am sure I will cry over the memories of the snuggle naps I shared with Mom and the realization those moments are forever gone and that past memories are all I can have of Mom now. And I am sure I will cry over the blessing of having my very own child who lays her head on my chest to snuggle nap with me.
IzzyMom is also thinking about being motherless today, though from a more conflicted perspective:
My mother died in a car accident when I was thirteen. I am motherless.
[...]
But I never knew my mother as an adult person. As an adolescent, however, our relationship was somewhat complicated and I can't imagine what our relationship would be like now. I do imagine, of course, what I would want it to be likebut it feels like a dream. A fantasy. A wish unfulfilled.
She speaks of not being able to find a silver lining for herself, but perhaps there is one for her children:
But my childrenthey have a mother that loves them immeasurably; a mother who, in having lost every living family member before the age of 35, understands the fragility of life, the importance of the little things; a mother who takes nothing for granted.
Last Wednesday I told you about an amazing woman losing her fight for motherhood along with her very life. On Friday, Jessica, known to most of us as CancerBaby, passed away after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Today I see that Motherhood Uncensored has named Jessica her Mother of the Week:
Maybe you do have to have a kid to be called a mother, but you don't have to have one to feel like a mother, or be motherly, or motherlike. And since I can't make this woman better, save her, or give her a child, I'm doing what I can.
So, in honor of Mother's Day and HBM's lovely contest, she's my Mother of the Week. Chances are she'll never know it. But I do. And now you do.
The above reference to "HBM's lovely contest" refers to this call to celebrate our favorite mommybloggers. 2Badladies tops it off by recounting her own discovery of mommybloggers and what it's meant to her in her own motherhood survival:
I may have gasped audibly. Somebody else knows. SOMEBODY ELSE KNOWS.
In an instant, I realized that I was not alone.
Thus began her journey through the land of kindred spirits:
Women - and men, and men and women - were writing about having babies. They were writing about how hard and amazing and exhilarating and painful and awe-inspiring and crazy-making and wonderful it is to have babies.
Read the whole post. It's long but worth it.
Lastly, for your surfing pleasure: This particular love letter to a wonderful mother by Jonna of Jonniker is a must-read:
And I won't even TALK about the fact that you chose Bob - perfect, loveable Bob - which says everything about you, and about how much you loved me. I could not have chosen a more perfect companion for you, nor a more perfect father for me. I have always said that I call him 'Bob' because
