Mother's Day Without Mothers

Sunday is Mother’s Day.  My daughter Kelli and I are plotting how best to pull off a Mother’s Day meal at our house with our oven being non-functional.  I’m sure we’ll figure something out so that Sharon doesn’t have to do the work and Kelli gets to be the representative for our three children.

What is different this year for Sharon and me is that we have both lost our mothers in the last few months.  My mom passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on January 28 and Sharon’s mom passed more slowly and expectedly on April 14.  So this year is the first Mother’s Day without mothers.

Many of you have already experienced this, but this is new for us and it kind of takes away our role as celebrants.  Certainly Sharon will be celebrated, as she should be, but she and I have no mothers here to celebrate. I will be giving Sharon a present as I always do because she is the mother of my children.  But I have no mother to buy-a-card-for-at-the-last-minute-and-hope-it-gets-to-Coeur d’Alene-in-time and Sharon has no mother to express her love and appreciation to in the flesh.

It just highlights our loss again.  I’m sure the year will be full of those.  For all of us who have lost loved ones, the first year is the hardest but it never goes back to normal.  Sunday will be another reminder of King David’s statement about losing his son who died shortly after birth.  He said,  “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

We will celebrate our moms on Sunday.  They just won’t be here to appreciate it.  But if you asked either of them if they want to return here to be part of the celebration, I’m sure they’d both turn down the opportunity.  They’re enjoying their new life too much to want to come back here to the world of limitations.  And we, who still live here, will have to adjust to those limitations yet again.  Like a Mother’s Day without mothers.