Birth Mother’s Day Week

Birth Mother’s Day Week

Another Mother’s Day Without You

Here we are. Spring has sprung and as always predictable Mother Nature is peppering our back lot with a variety of glorious wildflowers, birds are busy building nests, and sunsets have been stunners. I breathe in the soft air, the lovely scents, and reminisce about Mother’s Days in the past.

I honestly do not remember much about Mother’s Day in my childhood. I do remember our family went to church, and the mothers were given red corsages, the grandmothers, pink. I wonder, did our family not make much of that holiday?

When it was my turn to be a mother, I was seventeen, living in shame and secrecy in a Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers in New Orleans. I had been repeatedly told by my parents and the staff; I would not be allowed the privilege of becoming a mother. I was coerced into thinking only women wearing a wedding ring were given that honor and I surrendered my son to a closed adoption. I believed I would never celebrate Mother’s Day.
But life went on and years later I cherished Mother’s Day with my other sons who I had raised. Oh, those precious handmade Mother’s Day pictures, “You are the best Mommy” printed in childish letters, messy breakfasts in bed consisting of soggy French toast made by their sweet sticky hands, their smiles covered in syrup. I knew how lucky I was, but I always privately mourned the secret son who was not there to call me mommy. That loss was crushing, never to be spoken aloud.

These days those little children are adults, with their own children and they never fail to remember me on Mother’s Day. There are visits, flowers, gifts, beautiful verses written inside lovely cards, and loads of laughter. My husband gently smiles at me as I open gifts and banter with our children. And I usually smile so much that day my face aches when they all leave our home.

I am grateful for my life, my children, and grandchildren and always will be, but beneath my smile and beneath my heart there is a jagged scar. A scar that has been ripped open twice.

That newborn son I had been pressured to leave behind in 1967 to a closed adoption, reunited with me 49 years later. It was the most magical time in my life. My broken heart healed, and my life exploded in technicolor. I floated on air for months and every day was Mother’s Day because for once I could fall asleep at night and know where all my children were and that they were safe, healthy, and happy. I felt a peace I had not felt for fifty years. My secret son was back in my life, and I wanted to tell the world!

The first Mother’s Day card I received from my adopted son in 2017 was not a handmade card with a sweet childish “I love you Mommy” scrawled across it, but a beautiful card with a profound and heartfelt message written inside. “I love you Mom, and I always have.” I proudly displayed that card along with my other children’s cards on the mantel. The hole in my expanding heart was healing.

For four more Mother’s Days, I felt that way. Is there anything that makes us mothers more joyful than watching our children grow and flourish? Here I was, lucky enough to have all of my sons in my life.
Then the unthinkable happened. My adopted son took his own life, shattering me and traumatizing our entire family. His family. I was no longer the happiest mother in the world. This second and final time losing him ripped my heart into.

I hold close the memories of having my first-born son in my life for those short 4 years. I cherish his children whom I would never have known if he and I had not reunited. But this I know, my scarred heart will never completely heal from the knowledge of the years we did not have together, his baby hands I never got to hold, his first steps, his birthdays, his first day of school, the pride of watching him grow and finding his way or the 50 years of Mother’s Days we were deprived of.

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