Mother's Day used to be very hard for me in the past. I would completely shut the world out in the weeks leading up to it because i couldn't bear to see all the gift ads on TV and in shop windows. I thought if I pretended not to see them then it wouldn't hurt so much but it did. It hurt real bad. I would cry buckets and buckets of tears. My heart would break on the day watching other people with their mothers laughing and having fun giving them gifts. I so badly wanted to do the same with my own mother but I couldn't. And I was always thinking how unfair that was.
And the 25th being a holiday doesn't help me much. it means I am at home and idle (well now i have a toddler so its difficult to ever be idle) and i have lots of time to "think". To think about my loss, to think about how miserable I thought I was. I remember in 2008 I sat in the shower for what felt like hours just letting
the water wash away my tears. and there were plenty to wash. This is the one time I didn't want anyone else at my pity party. Part of me was hoping the water would dissolve me and take me down the drain with it. Another year i completely forgot what day it was and i felt so guilty about it when i realised. I beat myself about it for the next week because I felt i had no right to skip my yearly "grief ritual".
This year though I realised something. I don't have to mourn every May. In as much as I would like my mom to be here, in as much as i would like to buy her a card for Mothers' day or chocolates and a bath robe for her birthday I can't. I can however pay tribute to the woman she was by enjoying those special days with the people that I still have. I am so grateful to have known such a beautiful, strong willed woman. To have loved her and to have been loved by her in return. To have had an example to follow when I had my own kids. Nothing can ever bring her back but from now on I'm not going to wallow in self pity and cry myself to sleep anymore but I can actually be happy, especially on Mother's day seeing as I'm now a mother myself.
