Mother's Day:The day you let your mother know how much you appreciate, admire and love her. As a mother without a mother, Mother's Day no longer feels complete to me. The offers and promotions on television, social media and in the folders are not for me. I do not participate in giveaways such as “win a bunch of flowers for your mother”. It feels different when you have to put those won bunch of flowers on a tombstone than when you can really give them to your mother on this second Sunday in May. No, a Mother's Day without a mother is really different .
The day before Mother's Day I lost my mother...
It was the day before Mother's Day that I lost my mother. Perhaps that was the most double Mother's Day up to now. I had lost my mother, but my three children proudly brought me their homemade crafts the next morning. Of course I was happy about that, after all I am their mother † I thought back to my childhood, when I proudly handed a block of crushed clay containing my painted handprint to my mother. She was happy with it, because my mother was happy with every homemade gift. At least, that's how it felt to me. Those gifts probably ended up in the bin after a few weeks, just as the paper teapots, cut flowers and clay memo holders eventually ended up in the bin with us.
You may be more like your mother than you think...
Actually, we didn't do much on Mother's Day. I stopped by for a coffee and often brought a little something. But the fact that it's no longer possible and I have to spend my Mother's Day without a mother sometimes makes me jealous of friends who still have a mother. They whine about her interference. “My mom and I are so different!” Uhuh… wait, maybe you are more like your mother than you realize. My mother wasn't a saint either and she certainly did things I didn't agree with, but I do know that I am more like my mother than I had previously thought.
No one will ever share my earliest past with me again
What matters is that you only have one mother. One woman who knows how you used to play with your doll as a little kid, how that part of your canine tooth broke off, or what you were good at in kindergarten. The woman who knows what you loved to do as a toddler, who comforted you when you broke your knees. Karin Bloemen already sang it in her song 'No child anymore':"no one will ever share your earliest childhood with you again". It doesn't matter how many photo albums have been made of you or how many aunts or uncles you have who want to tell you all kinds of things. Or that you still have a father. No one tells you how your mother tells you. With a warm blanket of mother love.
What do you think about on Mother's Day?
I'm thinking about my mom this Mother's Day, but I also enjoy being a mom myself. That I had the privilege to be a mother † I regularly want to put my children behind something and they are also regularly tired of me (why else do they say that I am the stupidest mother in the whole world?), but they also make a party of my life. Although I no longer have a father or mother with whom I can share my earliest childhood, I can shower my children with a warm blanket mother love † Just being a mother, being there. Because that's what they'll remember later when I'm gone. That's what they'll think about later on Mother's Day. And that is also the reason why this Mother's Day I will bring my mother another bunch of flowers to her grave. Because she was always there for me .
ps… Geja's story arrives in my inbox at the exact moment I wanted to write about it myself… and oh how recognizable it is… that's why I'm so happy with Mom's story.
