As Mother’s Day Approaches

I know it can be a hard day. Every marquee at every restaurant touts it. Sentimental commercials broadcast emotion. Your inbox swells with gift suggestions. The grocery store explodes with floral arrangements.

And here you are. Your baby isn’t here. You expected a swelling belly, or maybe even the bundle to be here. Or like me, maybe yours should have been scrawling crayoned rainbows on handmade cards by now.

But, you feel you have nothing.

Think of this way:

• Did you feel joy when you learned you were pregnant?
• Did you plan and hope and dream about the day your baby would arrive?
• Did you want nothing more than a happy, healthy little one?

How is this different than every other mother? Are mothers whose children die full grown any less mothers because their children are no longer here? Of course not.

You are a mother. You were the bearer of that baby’s future. You brought this baby into the world, however it happened, at four weeks gestation, or full term, in a gush of blood and pain just like every mother does.

Don’t believe for a moment that everything out there isn’t talking about you. It is. And even more so, because you have born a grief that could destroy a mother’s hope–the loss of her child–and you have survived.

It’s your day. Take it to remember your baby. And send up a quiet word of thanks to your own mother, wherever she may be.

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