It is with great certainty that the call will never come, the card will never appear in the mailbox and that ever elusive bouquet or box of chocolates will remain missing in action. This is such a bittersweet day for me as well as many others. For me, it hasn't been the same since my son died suddenly in 2000. This will be the 20th time I will dread the day rolling around on the calendar.
Tomorrow will also be the first Mother's Day in my seventy some years that there is no one for me to send a card, make a call, or send flowers or something else sentimental that I have dreamed up far in advance and anticipation of the day. My mother left this earth last July.
It is also the first Mother's Day since my marriage in 1964 that my husband does not acknowledge the day due to dementia. It is robbing us both of so much. My daughter tries to make up for things and it is very appreciated indeed, however, there is so much missing that it sort of overtakes the joy at times.
During my lifetime, other women have had profound influences on my life: my Aunt Margie and Aunt Betty, Karlene Underwood Pratt, my sixth grade teacher Louise Helwig and Margaret Dresselhouse to name a few. These women gave me good counsel, a sympathetic ear, and showed forth amazing love for a floundering young girl and woman. They left important impacts on future choices I would make and I'm grateful for the insight and inspiration they gave me.
In my case it did take a village to raise a child: not because it was their responsibility but rather because they recognized my potential and felt I was worth guiding into the correct paths. My self-esteem was rather invisible and non-existent and each of these women added a layer of love as well as the encouragement I needed during some very difficult circumstances of my youth.
I will always be grateful and though they all left this earth, many of them decades ago, their influence is still with me and I reflect on them and their unconditional love from so long ago. Where might I be without any one of them? Only the Lord knows because He is the one who placed them in my path at precisely the right time.
This Mother's Day will once again be bittersweet, but how wonderful to know that despite them all abandoning me (temporarily) the Son has never nor will ever leave me. He is shining above the clouds especially those bittersweet ones in my mind.
Happy Mother's Day everyone, especially those wonderful women who have never given birth yet are blessed to possess the nurturing nature and ability to be special influences to other women's children.
