Mother's Day Without Mom

Mother's Day is approaching this weekend and for many of us we have had to deal with losing our mothers to death.

My mom died in April so Mother's Day followed shortly after. I needed to pick up a greeting card for a friends approaching birthday that year and had no thought whatsoever when I walked in to the card store other than the birthday card. The clerk immediately said "happy mother's day" to me and at the same time I saw the rack of Mother's Day cards. My heart stopped for a second and I felt like I could not breathe. I practically ran from the store. My pain was still that raw. Then my feeling was that of being pissed off that a clerk in a store would say that to me when I was not her mother and that she caused me so much pain. We all know it wasn't her that caused me the pain that day even though she should not have said it.

Healing took place and the pain was not so raw after that first year and I learned to celebrate my beautiful mom every year on Mother's Day. Part of healing is doing something to honor those we lost. One of her favorite flowers was red geraniums so I began planting a pot of those in celebration of her every year. Yesterday when I went to the garden center to get them the fragrance alone brought back so many wonderful memories.

Before I plant these today I will stick my nose right in the plants and inhale deeply the very distinct smell and feel so blessed for the mom I had. She taught me how to survive, thrive, and blossom just like these hardy geraniums I plant each year and see each day when I go out my backdoor.