Mother's Day

For 11 years of my life Mother's day was a day of grievance . Getting up for church, trying my best to make it the best Mother's Day for my Grandmother, eventually curling up into a ball and crying into my bedsheets. For everything that I've gone through, the one thing I can truely say...

I miss my mommy.

June 23rd 1995 the woman who gave me life, who put herself into every predicament where I'd get the best of everything, passed away while I was at school. I distinctly remember riding on the school bus to my baby sitters and looking out the window. The school year was over, I could spend more time with my mother and she would go to Rochester to receive chemo treatment and by my birthday she would be better. Please keep in mind, I was only seven years old.

Closing my eyes, the heat of the sun was warming to me. It felt great. Looking out the window again, pulling up to my baby sitters... my brother, Brad, was there. Along with my mother's boyfriend. The traditional mind of a seven year old, was always about me. I thought he had come up north for a few weeks like he normally does, and they were congradulating me on passing the 2nd grade.

Instead they were there to tell me the news. I was angry, why didn't they tell me sooner? Why didn't they get me out of school? Then I thought it was a trick, something planned... my mother isn't dead. She just isn't.

My mind went thinking like this until August... that she would come home, all better.

But she didn't.

The thing that wants me to scream to the heavens is that I didn't know her. I never will. Even today, I can't remember much of when I lived with her. Bits and pieces and lost memories brought on by old friends or relatives.

This Mother's Day, don't just remember the ones that you have brunch with and give a little trinket to. Remember the mother's that are gone from this world, with God. Pray for the daughters and sons that visit cemeteries and look at old pictures every year, and cry into bedsheets.  

Pray for the Grandparents and Fathers that have lost a loved one. Thank them on not only being one parent, but two. And thank them for filling in that void that will forever be there.

I thank my Grandmother, 93 years old she's still there. Still lecturing me, making sure that I eat and still alive. She still makes sure my head is on straight, and thinking the right way. For my son. She still cries with me and still laughs with me. For raising me, childhood through puberty and my adolescence I can not honestly give her enough credit in life.

I thank my Aunt, for teaching me the things that every woman should know. Pantyhose, deodorant, and how to be a woman. She's the real Martha Stewart in my life, I strive even today to be the woman that she is. Confident and intelligent in everything that she does.

I thank my Best Friend, she brought me into motherhood. The threshold of something that I could never think that I was ready for. Told me the right ways to do everything and what not to do. To take advantage of all of what this little life has given us. To show me that everything has a way and a will.

Who will you thank?