This whole thing is terrible. I bought my mom a present what feels like a hundred years ago, but it’s heavy and fragile glass, and I feel like I don’t know how to mail things or how to accomplish much beyond the basics of somehow running a cooped-up household with my husband while we still try to work and stay sane. I’m very frustrated by this item that has been sitting on my counter that I bought for her because I didn’t mail it and it’s here, the day before Mother’s Day and I really wanted her to have it.
But I know that really, that’s not what is bothering me. What I’m upset about is that I miss my mom so much it hurts. When I bought this gift some months ago, I never thought that I wouldn’t see my mom, who lives three to four hours away (depending on how much the kids all have to pee on the drive) for this long. I didn’t think I would be paralyzed by trying to figure out how to mail her this token because I thought I would bring it to her. This last year has been so hard, and now my parents are stuck somewhere far away, and I can’t see them or give them something I wanted them to have. I didn’t see that happening.
This morning though, it occurred to me that, as is the case with very nearly everything else, I’m just going to have to do things differently this year and enjoy what we do have. And what I have is a blog that I can fill with pictures to tell my mom that she has brought a lot into this world, and it’s more than the little present that I wanted to give her can show.
Mom, you’ve been a mother for fifty years on May 13, and really, it has been longer than that. Before that you were pregnant with your husband off on a ship, and you had to have already begun to understand that motherhood isn’t easy. And it hasn’t been easy for you. But you have brought an entire group of people into the world, and they have pulled in other special people, and this group is funny and interesting and smart and weird, and most importantly, they are caring, and they still turn to you for questions about what in the world to do with this uncooked, dismembered chicken or what kind of bird is singing in the tree outside.
I could have probably included a thousand more photos, but I wanted to assemble some pictures to bring all of us close to you. I’m sorry if some of it is sad, but it’s all pretty wonderful too.
I love you, and I can’t wait to see you again and give you that doggone present.
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