I have explained in the past that Mother's Day, even before Daniel's passing never held any particular fascination for me. I believe, as my own mother did, that I should be treated with respect and consideration the year round, and not simply honored on one allocated day. I already have a birthday, and my family values me already. The meager offerings of a child should therefore be spent on things they need. Of course, following Daniel's sudden and unexpected departure, Mother's Day became a day of endurance and often, of sorrow. Since most of our kids are grown or near it, they have each chosen to do something to perhaps soften the difficulty of the day. I received a private recognition from each of my children. My husband busied himself doing some chores I needed done here on the farm, and I spent the day doing exactly what I wanted to at home, which entailed organizing my disaster supply room. (Something I really need to be doing as it entails giving some things to my daughter at her home, and both rotating some stock and using other items.) When I was finished, I spent extra time with the dogs and the horses and the alpacas. This day, there were no tears. It was calm and I mothered both people and animals.
My balance was upset very slightly this morning when a friend sent me an article written by a Harvard pediatrician who had lost a son. I read her thoughts about how difficult a day it is and how she copes. With that, the tears came. Oddly, what I took from it is that even a Harvard pediatrician can lose her child. I suppose that in the deepest recesses of my mind I have wondered that if I had stuck to my original plan of being a physician, that I would somehow have detected Daniel's predilection for arrhythmia and sudden death and somehow have interceded. Perhaps I have wondered that if by being a nurse, I missed the snippet of information that would have allowed me to prevent Daniel's gorgeous light of a life slip through my CPR performing hands on the bathroom floor on that terrible, terrible day five and a half years ago now. Perhaps a pediatrician losing her child is the nod I need to realize that sometimes terrible things simply happen in this life no matter how much we love someone, and no matter how much we would be willing to do to keep them here on Earth with us.
I hope your day was pleasant, or at least without palpable sobs. Most years will be better.
