Mother's day is not my favourite day of the year. I think every day is Mother's day. We are so privileged to have the opportunity to have and raise our children. It's an honour so many people take for granted, I know because I am one of them. You might not think so, knowing my story but all too often as humans we get caught up in daily life and forget to take a moment, live in the moment and enjoy the little things that life brings.
I am adopted. I was adopted at 2 weeks old by the most loving parents a girl could ask for. My parents gave me all the love and support I could ever want and they blessed me with an extended family that means the world to me. In short - they ROCK. My dad says when something hurts one of us it hurts us all and we band together like no family I know. I am forever grateful that God found a way to put me with them.
I know a little bit about my "birth" family. My birth mother was a very proud woman with other children. The circumstances of my birth were difficult for her and her decision was to give me up. I think of her on Mother's day every year and thank her from the bottom of my heart for doing what she did. Little does she know that her decision to give me to a loving family would pay itself forward eighteen years later when I did the very same thing.
You see, I gave a baby up for adoption as well. Right out of high school I made some stupid decisions and found myself pregnant. Just a little over a month before my 19th birthday I gave birth to a baby girl. I never really saw her. I remember seeing dark hair and fat little legs and begging the nurses to get her out of the room before I could see more. I don't really think there was a dry eye in the room at that moment. You see this happened in a very small town and those nurses had known me since I was born. My mom was also in the delivery room with me through the whole thing. My mom hadn't had children from her body and she had just watched her daughter give birth to a baby she would never know. From the bottom of my heart I feel that she never really was my baby. Carrying her and my feelings for her were so different than those when I carried my sons. She was someone else's child. Never mine. Now some 33 years later I think about her and wonder about her. Is she happy? Were her parents good to her? All those corny questions you see in a Hallmark movie play through my head at random times of the year. They are most active during April, her birthday month and in May around my birthday and Mother's day.
I get a little moody around Mother's day when I see all the commercials on TV and watch families trying so hard to make mom's day perfect. It seems that the commercialism of the day is everywhere. Like any Hallmark holiday it is thrust upon us begging us to spend money to make mom happy. I find the whole concept quite offensive actually. There are so many people in situations where they are separated from their parents or children. They may not be able to afford all that the TV says we need to buy to make mom happy. So then they feel inadequate or unloved. Sucky!
Instead of buying into all of the commercialism that is Mother's day, why don't we just do something nice for someone else? Make dinner, spend some time, phone home, volunteer, make a donation. Anything but feed the machine that is making some of us quite crazy. My husband an kids used to ask what I wanted for Mother's day. I always said I wanted to be left alone. The pressure was always so great to make everything perfect that invariably someone always ended up eating dinner in the car if we went to a restaurant when the kids were little. So much pressure on the little ones that they just couldn't behave. No thanks.
So, Mother's day is tomorrow. Hug your mom if she is still here. This is my second Mother's day without my mom and I miss her. Hug your kids if you are lucky enough to have them in your life. Say a thankful prayer for all the blessings you do have in your life and say another prayer for those moms that don't. Let's make this world a better, more compassionate place.
With love, and Happy Mother's Day
k
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