Good Grief

This was my fourth Mother's Day as a mom. As I sheepishly laid in bed even after I was awake I smiled at the sound of little feet and squeels. I love my kids and I love being a mom (most days). It was my first Mother's Day without my mom in my life and the weight of the day was heavy. I tried to remind myself that it was only a day hand-picked by other people to celebrate a social role and that the next day would be just another day. It wasn't about it being Mother's Day. It was the fact that Mother's Day is the same as the day that came before it and the day that would follow it. Another day without my mom in my life. Mother's Day has always been the day that I would focus on the positives of my relationship with my mom and, for one day, try to forget the pain and suffering that came along with it. Mother's Day, by definition, reduces complicated human relationships of mother and children to the basic fact that this woman brought you into the world and, thus, should be honored. Only this year it was different. There was only a space, an emptiness, a sadness. While I allowed myself the permission to feel the grief throughout the day, I focused on the boy who made me a mother. And as Ignacio and I sat at the coffee shop across the table from each other as we ate way too many chocolate cookies and laughed, I reflected on the depth that being a mother has brought to my life. I thought about how I want to do things right with him and right by him forever, and I thanked him for making me a mom with the urge to cry. This was good grief at it's finest. Mourning loss with hope of new beginnings.