Happy Mother’s Day!
I’m touched by loving messages or memories of moms being honored by daughters and sons. My children have honored me well. But, for those of us who had less than adequate moms, this is for you. You are loved. R rated for realistic content.
To All of Us Who had Lousy Mothers, Cheers!
Here’s to us. Here’s to creating a life around the hollow left by their inability to mother. Here’s to loving our own children fiercely and well, despite all odds. Here’s to defying the limits our childhood, along with our parents, tried to set. Here’s to life, to love, to hope!
Brava to every one of us who survived. Who felt the pain of betrayal and loss. Who picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and started all over again. Many of us lost entire families, whole communities, affiliations with churches and other organizations. And yet, despite the crater left in the landscape of our new self, we faced forward, one step in front of the other, to create a new life. Congratulations on defying victimization, and emerging victors. Well done.
Mother’s Day rolls around every single year. It’s poignant. Bittersweet. I loved being loved by my mother, until she chose my father over the protection of me. And that hollowed out place in my soul exists to this very day. The beautiful tributes across social media make my heart stutter. It brings me up against what I lost each time. I’m happy for those lucky people. Generously happy. I celebrate their joy, the connections they share. I tuck my forever desire, to be loved as I love, away for another year.
Paradoxically, I love Mother’s Day. I adore being a Mom, a Nonna. I revel in my children’s ability to parent well. I am able to celebrate my daughter and daughter-in-law. I, too, am well celebrated by my son and family, and daughter and family, and my husband. We have special family traditions that warm the heart and satisfy this soul.
I am touched, deeply impressed, and take courage each day because of you. You chose to survive, thrive, to love well, and parent your sons and daughters in ways you wished you had been parented.
Today, I honor you, Moms who are daughters of less than adequate mothers. Happy Mother’s Day to you!
A beautiful, poignant, truth-telling post. I was blessed to be raised by a loving mother but an absent father and feel a bit like this on Father’s Day especially. I am always mindful of the many people who find these so called happy holidays hard and so am often reluctant to post happy things on social media. You say a lot here so eloquently and tastefully. Thank you for the gift of your words!
Thank you, Laura!
Thanks, Laura, for a touch of reality in the midst of all the cloying sentimentality that has come to symbolize Mother’s Day. This is especially important since the origin of the day is rooted in Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day proclamation after the Civil War calling for an end to sending mothers’ sons to war.
I didn’t know that, David, about the origin of Mother’s Day. Thank you! And, you’re welcome, about the reality check.
Congratulations to you Laura for rising above – for confronting – for sharing – for choosing love – for your outreach! Powerful! We all search and look for wholeness!
Thank you, Bud. Cheers!
Well said, Laura. Cheers!
Thank you, Curt!