Mother's Day Redeemed

The dress was gauzy and springy, covered in flowers and every pastel color you could imagine. She'd bought it from Belk, the one we frequented in late August to pick out new school clothes, and it was the last Easter dress I ever remember buying as a child.

Less than three months later I'd wear that dress and sit on the same burgundy covered pew that I'd perched on the edge of Easter Sunday but this time it would be for my mother's funeral.

My heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. The choir sang of going home and I dreaded the walls of what was my home and the emptiness of it all. The joy-filled face of my mama noticeably gone from the choir loft. Forever gone from my world as I knew it.

Eighteen years have passed between my mother and I since then. I've been haunted by her absence and when everyone else only occasionally thinks of her, less and less as time goes by, I have found myself thinking of her, wishing for her, missing her something fierce with each passing year.

All this unexpected grief circling back around to blindside me at the strangest times. 

I've missed her at the kitchen with dishes piled high in front of me. I've missed her in the quiet of a thousand midnights while wrestling the questions that life can hand us unexpectedly. I've missed her when I've printed pictures of our daughter for the rest of the family- knowing she would have made a gallery wall out of her grandchildren. I've missed her on those nights I need to sink into the couch and watch Dirty Dancing- because of course we would.

I've missed all the growing up and getting to know the mama you don't know as a child. For me I grew up but my mother never got to in my mind and that aches in the deep places. It aches to not know my mama the way other women get to know their mamas.

Some of you are motherless daughters too. You've lost mamas to cancer. You've lost mothers to the bottle. You've lost moms in long battles and quick as a flash moments. You've lost mothers who still live in the flesh but have left you without.

Mother's Day can feel like it isn't for us. The day can feel like a cruel joke meant to remind us of her absence.

I wish there was a band-aid big enough or a cup of tea large enough to make it right. I wish that I had words, but after eighteen years this girl who loves words still can't find the right ones to make the hurt of it all go away. 

What I have come to believe is that those of us who have lost mamas are a rare breed. We are the women who know the full value of motherhood. The worth of a mama who loves well and the richness of that relationship isn't lost on us.

When I think of my motherless sisters I think of brave. I look at you and I know that not one ounce of you doubts that motherhood is a gift. I see your determination to mother well. I want to link arms tight and believe with a full heart that we can be the mamas who shout it from the highest hills that motherhood is the highest of callings. 

A pity that one day a year we'd feel the weigh of it all. I stole a mountain bike and rode the most ridiculously hard trail one Mother's Day to hush the hurt. That is okay if that is where you are at, but I've got this crazy idea that God can redeem it all.

I've got a crazy idea that we can make Mother's Day a celebration of motherhood in spite of our own losses and seeming inadequacies.

Seriously. All of it. God rejoices to redeem all of it. Every bit of the feeling left out and the wishing she were here.

Go find the pictures of her from her senior prom. Dig out the scrapbook with the newspaper clipping chronicling your parent's romance. Gather your kiddos close and teach them all you know about her.

Will there be tears? Yes. Will our voices catch in our throats at some point? Yes. Don't hold back from the grief or it will hold you back from a life lived wholeheartedly.

Mine is a life come full circle. My daughter, there is just something about her, the way she looks back over her shoulder at me and her eyes flash. That's the years being redeemed by God and I'm finding it looks a whole lot like my mama. 

Leave me a line in the comments about your mama. I'd love to get to know you and her a bit. 

{Looking for another way to celebrate your mother and this Mother's Day? Why not throw a tea party in her honor? Might I also suggest picking up a copy of Surprised by Motherhood: Everything I Never Expected About Being a Mom by Lisa-Jo Baker. Reading Lisa-Jo's journey through being a motherless daughter was like talking with a friend who just gets it. I know it will touch you in the deepest places of the ache.}