Today is hard. The entire month is hard. Who am I kidding? All year is hard.
Today though, when everyone else is celebrating their mothers, I ache even more for mine, wishing I could hug her and give her flowers. More than anything I want to tell her one more time that I love her with all my heart and that I miss her with every single fiber of my being.
I have created new traditions in memoriam by meeting my siblings for tea in her honour, but nothing can mitigate her absence. The pain is just exacerbated as every shop sells gifts, flowers and cards, as if to prod the Motherless with a reminder that we cannot celebrate this day with her.
It’s been nine years since I lost my Mother, who died a week after Mother’s Day in 2007. The month of May is therefore completely filled with reminders of her absence – not that I need any. Emotions run especially high in the weeks leading up to both Mother’s Day and her death anniversary. Despite my general feeling that I have gotten accustomed to her absence, every year, without fail, May is the hardest month for me to get through.
I want to hold her, giggle with her and sing loudly in the car with her. I want to watch bad movies, chat about the cute detective on the bad crime shows that we love, and listen to her advice about stupid boys.
As I inch nearer to the end of my twenties, I find that Mother’s Day has become harder than it was a few years ago. Maybe I can credit the transitionary phase I’m in, but what I do know for sure is that the only thing that I feel can get me through it all without anguish, is my Mother’s love.
Finding distractions can be helpful, but as my social media feed fills up with friends smiling next to their Moms, and all the grocery stores sell fun cupcakes with the letters ‘M-O-M’ on them and I see fathers and their toddlers running around the park celebrating Mom, I hurt so, so much, because I want to do that, too.
I want my Mom to know that she is my hero, my best friend and that she was the Best Mother in the whole damn world and that I didn’t celebrate her enough, but that I will love her and try to celebrate her for the rest of my life even if she isn’t around to see it – on Mother’s Day and every other day of the year.
