Mother's Day...Sigh

For the last three Mother's Day celebrations, my husband Cliff snuck out of the house and bought flowers and a card for his mother-in-law. Then he'd trek over to the grocery store and buy groceries with the intention of making a lovely meal for Mom. We hung out with Mom and spent time. She loved her flowers and enjoyed the meal made by Cliff. "My favorite son-in-law!" she'd say. This Mother's Day has been quite different. 

Cliff made his usual trek to the grocery store to get groceries for a lovely meal but two things are missing; flowers for Mom and Mom. This is the first Mother's Day that I'm not celebrating with Mom. At least not in person. I feel the loss more heavily than I anticipated. We're still doing dinner in her honor. My sister, Jodie, is here to celebrate as well and I'm so grateful.  We'll have a great meal and then we'll all sign a card that we'll burn. We're still making this most of this day. 

At first the Mother's Day advertisements didn't bother me at all. I'm sure in some ways I intentionally ignored them. I pretended I didn't care. Then I went card shopping with Cliff. We still had to send his mom a card. So there I was standing in the card aisle at CVS watching him and other customers pick out cards. Out of nowhere it hit. Bam! Mom is gone and I can't pick out a card. I started sobbing and I freaked out half the customers in the store. It's not like I fell apart in the middle of the sales floor. I wasn't screaming or yelping. I simply sobbed. I felt more empty and alone even though I was surrounded by people. That's the thing about grief. It isolates you without meaning to. It just happens. You're the only person in the room in a fog. I looked at Cliff and I noticed he wasn't picking cards out anymore. He held one out to me and with held back tears said, "This one's for your Mom. We'll burn it and have a glass of wine." I smiled through the tears. Mom and I used to share a glass of wine some evenings. 

I miss Mom. My sister and I talked about that a lot this weekend. It's good to be spending time with her. It's been hard grieving without family. Cliff has been such a rock through all of this but sometimes it's comforting to grieve with a sibling. So today instead of being sad and angry that Mom isn't here, we're celebrating the woman she was and the fact that she was our Mom. Happy Mother's Day, Mom wherever you are. We love you.