Mother’s Day

Mother’s day is just around the corner, but my only reminder is the little circle on my calendar that notifies me of all U.S. holidays. That, and the countless podcasts and interviews and notifications I am receiving quite ironically from my grief social media account.

Do you ever see all of these advertisements for the next workshop to help you through your mother’s day grief and think, yes, but. . .now what? I’ve done the workshops, I’ve done the therapy, I’ve heard the podcasts. They’re all amazing and valuable (shoutout to my very own Mending Word workshops because duh!) but even I have to take a breather sometimes and think, I’m over it. I’m over the constant reminders of mother’s day grief and having to grieve. I’m even, dare I say it, okay? Definitely not in that full sense of the word, as my most recent google search for therapists would prove. I’'ll never be that “okay” that once was before all this grief, but we already established that, right?

I guess the thoughts I am trying to convey here is that I didn’t really notice nor care about Mother’s Day this year. Yeah, my mom is dead, and yeah, it freaking sucks. But there’s a lot going on right now that is kind of taking center stage, and I don’t know if this will make me a horrible griever (it won’t) but I don’t feel threatened by Mother’s Day anymore.

Did I think about my mom the entire drive home from work yesterday as I usually do? Yes. Did I cry? No, that would’ve resulted in a pretty bad accident. Did I just sit there and acknowledge the pang of grief, how it felt in those moments of missing her so much and how desperate I was to call her? Of course. (Side note, what’s with the driving and general traveling that makes all the grief come rushing back? Anyone else?)

Do I feel particularly sad on this upcoming Sunday that I won’t get to celebrate with her? Not really.

Maybe it’s the five years and the distance from the loss. Or maybe it’s the heartache that I have almost every weekend and holiday that I don’t get to go home to her. But some of these nationally recognized holidays like mother’s day just doesn’t really do it for me anymore.

Anyways, this was all to say that I’m learning, as always, the way I grieve my parents is constantly evolving. Some days hurt more than others and for some reason, every year those days change.

There really is no right or wrong way to grieve. If you’re also feeling similarly to me, I want to let you know that you’re not alone. It’s totally normal if you haven’t cried or even thought about your dead parent in the past year and it’s also totally normal if you do every day. And it’s totally normal if you frankly just don’t care about this upcoming Sunday but it’s also totally normal if you want to swallow yourself up whole and cry in your bed all day. It’s totally normal because I feel all these things too, so we’re not that different in our grief, you and I. And I guess that’s the point of this whole article anyway. That, and because I haven’t written in what feels like a very long time, and for some reason I just felt like I had to get this off my chest.

I love you mom, and I wish we could just hang out this weekend and watch your favorite movies together. But this Sunday I will probably be distracted training my little puppy and getting groceries and preparing for the week ahead. So I’m sorry if I don’t remember that Sunday is meant to be a day where I should be sad that I don’t have you anymore. But I think we’re pretty confident in how much I miss you and yearn for you basically every other day, right? So it’s fine that Sunday will just be a day and I won’t feel any different.

Although it’s currently Wednesday afternoon as I write this and we still have a few days away for my grief to fluctuate so who knows ey?