A Motherlode of Emotions on Mother’s Day

Knowing my love won’t change even if I’ve learned to accept her absence

Mom, early 1960s. Photo by author’s father.

Those of us who grieve know all too well the significance of those birthdays, anniversaries, along with big and small holidays. They’re loaded, to say the least. And for me, Mother’s Day is a big one, triggering a motherlode of varying emotions through the years.

Today, I can’t help but look back on that last Mother’s Day I spent with my mother exactly eleven years ago — and many of the other Mother’s Days or weeks leading up to it that followed.

Mother Day’s Weekend, May 10-11, 2014

I’m almost ashamed to admit I’ve forgotten the vast majority of Mother’s Days prior to the last one I spent with Mom. Yet, for obvious reasons, the last one would remain unforgettable — and not merely because it was the last with her. It was the one that seemed to embody all of the hopes and dreams we had that fraught year.

That was the weekend Mom returned home after two weeks and two days at the hospital and rehab since her unexpected stroke on the evening of April 24. 2014. Dad and I had gone from the extremes of desperation and dread on the night of her stroke to ecstatic tears of relief the next day.