Reasons to Celebrate After All

A few weeks prior to this Mother's Day, I was lamenting that the "holiday" currently didn't apply to me...I'm not a mom, and I lost my mom a little over a year ago. Waaaa-waaaa. I was thinking and behaving like a Debbie Downer all around!

Well, I happened to have just learned (yeah, JUST learned!) how to make folders on my Apple computer. So the other night I was organizing all of my documents. I was reading over all sorts of stuff and deciding what to trash and what to keep.

I came across some writing I had done during the last 10 days or so of my mom's life. I had wanted to record all the things she said to me and just remember every little piece of her that I could. Unfortunately, I was so emotionally drained at the time, that the writing is pretty sketchy and not all that detailed. However, it was enough bring a lot of memories to the surface. Painful, but sweet.

It stirred my emotional pot so much that I found myself, more or less, in a fetal position bawling later that night. Crying over how much I miss her. Crying over the empty feeling I sometimes feel without her around. But, I guess, ultimately crying over how lucky I am to have had her all the years that I did. I looked at my clock and realized it was well after midnight on Saturday night- and so it was officially Sunday- Mother's Day.

I rethought everything I had decided about Mother's Day not applying to me anymore- of course it does, and it always will! I can't literally take my mom out to celebrate that day, or any others now, but I still have a mom and I will always think of her and I will CELEBRATE HER. I have tons of great memories; some I think of often, and others that suprise me every now and then. My mind allows me to still hear her voice, see her face, and even know what she would say in most cases.

AND, I AM a mother, I realized... I have my dogs, which I never actually refer to as "dogs" as it seems so disrespectful- They are lovingly referred to as "the girls"- My girls, and I am their mother.

So enough of the Debbie Downer attitude. I've got plenty to celebrate each year when Mother's Day rolls around.