Warning. I am about to make a tremendous understatement.

Holidays are tough.

There. I said it.  Holidays are hard when grief gets in the way.  Maybe not every holiday.  Maybe not Halloween or St. Patrick’s Day so much.  But those holidays that center around family—like Christmas and Thanksgiving—and those that focus on one particular person—say, like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day—those are difficult to celebrate when someone special is missing.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and, like most of the rest of the world, I have a mother. She’s just not here.  If I want to visit her, I won’t be going to her home or some nursing home or assisted living facility.  I can forget about calling her.  We disconnected my parents’ home phone years ago . . . and she was never very good with a cell phone . . . not that it would matter anymore.  And if I want to send her flowers they’ll have to go to the cemetery instead of some residential address.

It’s hard to buy a Mother’s Day card for my mother-in-law, not because of anything she’s done. She’s a lovely person who accepted me as her own from the very beginning and has always treated me with love and respect.  It’s just that all those cards I see remind me of the days when two were purchased instead of one, and as I read them searching for just the right message, I find those I would have bought for my mother . . . if the need was still there.

And you know what? It’s all right to be sad, it’s all right to miss her even though the first of this month marked eight years since she died.  I know people whose mothers died decades ago and they still miss them, still wish they could ask their advice about a particular problem or just stop by to visit or watch them watch their grandchildren or great-grandchildren and see their eyes light up with pure joy.

My grandchildren will never know my mother; she died before they ever entered this world. But I can still show them her picture.  I can still tell them who she was and how much she would have loved them and how much she looked forward to their arrival on this earth.  Because you see, as long as I’m alive—and as long as my children live—there will always be a part of her within us.  And that’s something I want to share just as long as I can.  She is directly responsible for at least half the person I am today, and even though she is no longer physically here, that’s a contribution I choose to honor, especially on a day set aside for that very purpose.

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