Mother’s Day

Mothers day. An odd day for some.
For me. For my children. For my wife.

My own mother died half a dozen years ago,
a sudden thing, unexpected,
way to early, despite her age.
Always appreciated it was not until she was gone
that I realized just how deeply I am permiated
by her. It’s a daily loss, but more so today.
Grief is never linear.

My own kids lost a mom, or were driven
away by a conditional love that left scars.
A slower loss than my own mother,
and more damaging for the time taken
from start to end. That they were loved
differently, unconditionally, by the woman I married
not so many years ago, and found what they had lost
has resulted in a new appreciation of what a mother
can, and should be. It warms my heart every time
I see them together. Somehow my wife
loves them as her own, and if you knew how deeply
she loves her own, you would count that a miracle.

I have an extra daughter now. Loved as my own, who
has the grace to share her lifelong mother
with me and two siblings. Not every one can do that,
but so sure of her mother’s love is she,
that she can. A tribute to her mother, that.

There’s more to her story. More loss.
Unfair and almost unbearable loss.
Grief is not linear and she bears her own
somehow without daily bitterness.
A good lesson for our children.
Not a bad one for me as well.

Families are complicated. Ours a bit more than most.
Motherhood takes a different kind of love,
flexible and full. Rich and sure when the world around us is not.
One day to celebrate her? It seems unfair.
And yet, she loves.

About this poem

Semi-bioographical. Some of the darker places were left out. My wife has been and is an extraordinary mother. And in a world where less and less mom’s understand how unconditional love actually works, worth celebrating.

Happy Mother’s day to you all.

Tom