Mother's Day
Took 10 years, but there's gratitude.
Like most holidays (or sometimes just a random Thursday these days) Mother’s Day can be a little complicated. It’s flowers and cards and brunch, for some, but for others, it’s a reminder of what’s missing. For me, it’s a bit of both.
Losing my mom was like losing a color from the rainbow, or losing half the sun. The world became less - less colorful, less bright, just... less. I felt less myself, too. But as time has passed, I’ve realized something: even in the dark, rays of light still break through.
I found that there are pieces of my mother in the way I move through each day and in how I connect with the people around me. I see her in every person who offers me love, kindness, or compassion. Somehow, she shows up in the smallest, quietest moments, just when I need her, reminding me I’m not alone.
She’s there when a red cardinal lands on the tree outside my window. When the sun hits the Catalina mountains just right. When “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Stones plays on the radio at the grocery store. She’s there in my best friend’s voice, calling in the middle of work chaos, just to say she’s proud of me, and thinking of me. I find traces of her in the woman at church who quietly handed me tissues when I started to cry during prayer, whispering with a soft smile, “Happens to me every week.” I find her in my boyfriend’s mother when she gives me space to talk about health worries, or simply a hug. I find her in my girl friends who show up with dinner and laughs on the nights I need it most.
Maybe your mother isn’t in your life. Maybe she never was, or maybe she can’t be what you need her to be. But on days like Mother’s Day, I’ve learned to look around and notice the people who are here. The ones who show up, in ways big and small. The ones who love, support, and value you, not out of obligation, but by choice.
Tell them you love them. Show them you love them. Be grateful.
Losing my mom is something I may always be working through, but something it has taught me is how incredibly important gratitude is.
I recently listened to Martin Short speak about losing his brother, then mother, and then father, all by his early twenties. He had experienced the loss of his whole family. Now, I don’t know if you are familiar with Martin Short, but he is hilarious and smiley and energized.
He goes on to say that he could never understand people who were unhappy or ungrateful because - they’re alive. He said that he’ll always remember how badly his mother wanted to live. Listening to Martin Short’s story about how loss shaped him, I realized we share something in common: a deep gratitude for life, even when it’s messy.
Martin Short’s interview stuck with me, as do books like The The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku, or Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, these pieces I’ve been coming back to lately actually and rereading, because I found this incredibly important common thread of emphasizing gratitude, above all else, and how that is what will keep us going.
Grief never really leaves, you grow around it. And if you let it, it can open you, quietly shaping you, even teaching you. I will always wish my mom were here. But through losing her, I’ve learned to notice life more closely, to recognize love in all its forms, how to hold it tightly, and to never take it for granted.
I think I’ve come to carry with me an awareness of how precious it is simply to be here… to feel the warmth of sunlight on my face, to laugh with a friend, to cry with someone who gets it, to hear a song on the radio that feels like it’s just for me. Even on the hardest of days, for whatever the reason, there is still so much goodness around. The simple fact that we’re alive, and get to notice beauty and be moved by it, to connect, grow, and give, surrounded by people who care, is a gift.
That’s where gratitude begins - not in having everything feel okay or perfect, but in realizing that even through the ache or confusion - it's about showing up and holding onto the beauty that is still here.
And that lesson, somehow, feels like just another gift I got from Mama.
Happy Mother’s Day.