Mother’s Day By Megan

Mother’s Day — a modern celebration honoring one’s own mother, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.

Mother’s Day for me used to be a day in which I would scrape together what little money I had to buy the perfect card, gift or ingredients I needed to make the perfect culinary treat for my mom. Of course, I was never any older than 16, so the word “perfect” is probably stretching it a bit, but I’m sure my mom loved whatever I came up with.  Sadly, I lost my mother a little over 13 years ago, so since then, Mother’s Day has always seemed kind of pointless to me, seeing as you need a mother in order to celebrate it.  For a while, I spent the day trying to pretend that everything was alright, but really I was always just full of sadness, because I missed my mom,  and anger, because it always seems like the other mother-daughter pairs I was surrounded by, were being shoved in my face. Even now I know that’s not true, it’s just my paranoia setting in which it always eventually does. And then finally jealousy, because I’m not one of those happy mother-daughter pairs.

Now that I’m a little older, Mother’s Day has turned into much more. Now not only do I not have my mother around, but I am also not a mother myself. My mom was 34 years old when she had me, these days, waiting to have children until you’re a little more established in life, seems to be trending, but back then, something I noticed was that she was usually older than all of the mother’s of my friends. Because of that, I decided that I wanted have a child much younger, but now I am much closer to her age then I care to admit, and I still don’t have a child of my own.

Last year I felt as if I had finally reached my breaking point, and was no longer able to sit there, surrounded by happy mom’s and their kids, and pretend that everything was alright. My wife had decided to invite all of the mothers and their children in the family, over to our house for brunch. It was a really sweet and thoughtful idea, except that instead of putting myself through it, I wound up escaping to my sister’s house. It was nice to be with her, because I knew that she was missing our mother just as much as I was, but she has two of her own children. So as much as she missed our mom, the other gaping hole in my heart, was lacking in hers.

This year, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I am trying very hard to be less negative and I’m trying to focus on what I do have, instead of what I don’t. I may not be a mom right now, but I know in my heart that it will happen soon. And I may not have my own mother anymore, but I am lucky enough to have the mother-in-law that I do. Its funny, because when you think of mother-in-laws, you often think about the stereotype that is usually portrayed in movies and TV shows. I think of Jane Fonda in Monster-in-Law, or Doris Roberts in Everybody Loves Raymond. I however, happened to really luck out when it comes to mine. She and I are so similar in so many ways, and get along really well. We have long conversations about food  & different cooking techniques, we compare the strange going ons in both of our heads , I call her Momish & she calls me Megish. She may not be my actual mother, but she is a pretty wonderful stand in.