My Mother's Daughter

Today I'm linking up with A Holy Experience and celebrating moms while making a difference for mothers in Haiti.  Please check out 1000 Moms Project and join us!  And please click here to see other submissions.

Dear Mom,

This is my first Mother's Day without you.

How surreal this all seems.  Even though I'm a momma now, it's funny how Mother's Day doesn't feel the same without you--without my mom.  I've spent years making this day about you and now, now what do I do?

When I allow myself to really sit long and feel my feelings, I feel so alone.  I've wanted to call you so many times.  To tell you how I messed up so bad and to get your comforting words and advice.  To share the funny things Pax says and to brag about what a good reader M.E. is and how kind she is to her friends at school.

Ballet recitals.  New cars.  Orange fingernail polish.

So many times I catch myself thinking, "My mom would love this" or "I wish my mom was here."

I feel so alone.  A motherless daughter.

Mother's Day is just another reminder that I won't be calling you and I won't send you a card.

I am motherless.

The taste of those words on my lips is bitter gall.  I want this grief to end.  I keep expecting it to get easier but it just gets. more. real.

I am motherless.

Though it hurts and breaks, I refuse to be defeated by this truth.  If I am to move forward, I can only do so holding firm to the truth that all things work together for my good--even this pain and grief.

This Mother's Day I just wanted to say thank you for mothering me.

• Thank you for the sleepless nights you spent feeding me, rocking me, waiting up for me, and fighting for me.
• Thank you for giving me the grace to try on different personas so I could figure out who I am and who I am not (and let's breathe a collective sigh of relief I am not orange-haired, rebellious Reagan).
• Thank you for making our house a home so homey all my friends wanted to be there.
• Thank you for letting me make mistakes and feel the consequences of those mistakes.
• Thank you for NEVER seeing me as the sum total of my mistakes.  Your faith in me was often my strength.
• Thank you for insisting I call my elders Mr./Mrs./Ms.
• Thank you for being there--when I needed to talk, when I needed space, when I needed to vent, when I needed to cry, when I needed a hug, when I needed nothing--thank you for being there.
• Thank you for squeezing my hand as you took your last breath--for that last bit of reassurance that everything was going to be okay ... even me.
• Thank you for showing me how to be a mom.  

Sacrificial.  Hopeful.  Persistent.  Enduring.  Graceful.  Merciful.  Just.  Humorous.  Kind.  Loving.

You displayed all these traits.

On Sunday morning, those sweet children will bound into my room with breakfast and a plan to head to the hills. The will shower me with sticky mouth kisses and jam hand hugs and gifts they made out of stuff they found.  I will smile and delight in the ways they bless me. In this way, I hope you are blessed.    I am the mom and wife and woman I am because of who you were.

I am mother's daughter.