My mother lost her second bout with cancer on February 17th of this year. Since that time, I’ve been so caught up taking care of my father, my two autistic brothers, the estate (such as it is), and the medical bills, that I’ve hardly had a chance to mourn her.
That is, until I came home from work last week and found in the mail an ad from J. C. Penney’s, touting their big Mother’s Day sale.
I went into the apartment and cried for twenty minutes. Maybe longer, I don’t know.
Our family never had any money, but we always made a big deal of birthdays and holidays. We always spent them together–the only acceptable reason to miss was for work. And we always scraped up gifts of some sort–always something nice, or fun, or useful, ideally a combo of all three. Rarely expensive, since we couldn’t afford it. That’s okay, though: we’ve learned to appreciate the things we had, and we made a game out of getting bargains.
This year I don’t have anyone to play the Bargain Game with. This year there are pretty rings and flowers and clothes out there that I know my mom would like. And I can’t give them to her.
It makes me so sad. I don’t think I’ve ever felt grief like this. Not even when Grandma died.
But at the same time, there’s this odd kind of joy. I guess it’s because I know so many folks who have lousy relationships with their parents, or whose folks died and the problems between them were unresolved.
I don’t have to worry about that. Mom and I were best friends. We had heart-to-hearts about a lot of things right before she passed. We said what we needed to. And I have no doubt that she knew I loved her, and that she loved me.
I have joy, because of that love.
So I’m sad, because I don’t get to spend Mother’s Days with Mom. But I’m glad because I had such great Mother’s Days while she was here.
