Many of you have probably been seeing my posts and tweets with silly things your Mom said or random Mother’s Day statistics this week, and I want to thank you for indulging me. After losing my Mom almost 15 years ago, this continues to be a tough weekend for me. I guess part of the reasoning behind the posts were for me to ‘embrace’ what is typically a happy and joyous time for other people, when personally it sucks (pardon my language).
Mother’s Day is the day that reminds me that I’m alone. Don’t get me wrong, I have an amazing, incredible husband, a very supportive and loving family and the best friends a girl could ask for, but it’s not the same as having a Mother….more specifically MY Mother. Shortly after she died, a colleague explained how I felt….like a balloon floating alone in the sky…no tethers, no child’s hand to hold onto it, nothing. She was right. It’s been enough years that I don’t think that every day, but I do think it every Mother’s Day and every Father’s Day. While I had a great relationship with my Dad, and I love him and miss him every day, it’s not the same as a Mother/Daughter relationship. There are so many different kinds of Mother/Daughter relationships out there and no two are exactly alike. Mine was different than yours and yours is different than hers. Yes, some times my Mom made me crazy, yes sometimes she made (what I felt) were unreasonable requests, and but yes, she was there every time my heart was broken, I had a bad day and when I needed to call someone to tell them that I was home after driving two hours in a snowstorm.
Once in a while I feel a sign of her presence - more so when I need it most. Yesterday I was on Facebook and just cruising through a bunch of posts and I saw one from Athleta. It’s a sportswear company for women, and they had posters with things that Moms say. The one below struck a particular cord with me and I burst into tears.
When we found out that my Mom only had a few days to live, maybe even hours, while she was still coherent she wanted to talk to each of us. I remember that day vividly, I had called in sick to work because I had a wicked cold and I felt awful – in fact I had decided I was too sick to visit her at the hospital. But then I got a call from my sister and I went. It was Nancy, my Dad and I in the waiting room and she met with each of us individually. I don’t know what she said to them, but what she said to me was ‘You know, you’re stronger than you think you are’.
In my heart of hearts, I don’t think I truly believed her. I thought she was saying something that she was supposed to say because she knew that her passing was going to be hard on me. But maybe she was looking into the future or something. While her death was hard and still is, I try to remember the Mom I knew, not the one that was so sick and suffering. But the one that when I was a teenager would come up in my room and dance with me or the one that taught me I could do anything if I just put my mind to it ..and read the instructions. 
I’ve been through some very difficult circumstances in the past few years and I didn’t think I could get to the other side. But when I was feeling my lowest, smallest and most insignificant, somehow she was there with these words to lift me up.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom. I love you and miss you every day.
Julie
