Well... I survived last week (glad it is over), which also means I survived Mother's Day. It was not as terrible as I anticipated or as it could have been, and I managed not to cry.
As I mentioned to my friend, it was as good of a Mother's Day as I could have experienced without Hailey and I believe that was possible because of 2 things - 1. prayer and 2. perspective. I chose to focus on how proud and privileged I am to be Hailey's mom. I was her mom before she was born, as she grew inside of me, I was her mom when she was born and graced us with 36 days of her life, and I am still her mom even though she is not here with me. Despite some of my fears and negative thinking, nothing can change the fact that I am her mother and she is my daughter, not even death.
The difficult thing about Mother's Day, that I have only now come to realize, is that society seems to only celebrate the mothers who are here on earth and who have children here on the earth with them. They forget the mothers who have passed and they forget the mothers who have children who have passed. But those mothers need that day more than the mothers and children who are still here together do. I never knew the pain that such a celebratory day could cause. Women who suffer from infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths, the deaths of children...These women need to recognized too. They don't need to be recognized in the sense that 'oh this day is so painful for you' which yes most of the time it is, but they don't need reminders of that; instead, they need to be celebrated on Mother's Day too. And I just have to say that I really can't believe it's 2010 and there are still no cards in the card section for Mother's who are like me.
And I will admit, I avoided church this weekend. I couldn't face it, face the unknown. I didn't know what it would be like if I went. Would they acknowledge the mothers by having them stand with their children? Would they show happy pictures of moms with their kids? Would they pass out flowers to the mothers? What would they do? Would the message be about motherhood? I couldn't face it. Mostly because even the church fails to recognize the pain of Mother's Day for many women like myself. Maybe if they included us in what they're celebrating it would be different... but childless mothers like me go ignored...which is a source of the pain. I wasn't necessarily afraid of the sorrow that would come of seeing the other mothers with their children, although that would have been hard of course, but I was more afraid of being ignored or being in an awkward situation. I didn't want to start my day out feeling like my motherhood was in question or non-existent which would make me cry no question. So I didn't go. Maybe next year I can do it. But not this week, not this Mother's Day.
But I really had a nice Mother's Day. Many family and friends wished me a Happy Mother's Day and had many nice thoughts to share with me. My mom had flowers delivered to me on Friday. On Sunday Josh woke me up by putting a jewelry box in my hand which contained an expensive white gold chain for my pendant of Hailey's footprint (I accidentally broke its original chain earlier last week), and then he made me my favorite breakfast, a ham omelet, which I enjoyed outside with him, our puppy, and the beautiful weather and sunny blue skies. And then the rest of the day was pretty quiet, but that is okay. I enjoyed my time with my husband and puppy.
But perhaps more important than any of those other things was what God gave me (in addition to Hailey and the gift of being her mom). God blessed me with several gifts this weekend. First and foremost, He gave me His peace which allowed me survive and smile yesterday. But He also gave me some unexpected gifts. He blessed me with a beautiful, vibrant, pink rose that fully bloomed on Saturday (pic above)...more beautiful than the pink rose our friend delivered to us the day Hailey died and more beautiful than the one I placed on her casket the day we buried her...I like to think that this rose was a gift to me from Him and Hailey.
And Saturday night I had one of those awesome dreams about Hailey that God blesses me with every now and then - this one had God's perfect timing. In my dream I recalled memories of holding Hailey when she was alive and the memories of the last time I held her body and kissed her cool forehead. And then as I was remembering those memories in my dream, all of a sudden God placed Hailey in my arms. I could only think two things in my dream when that happened. One, God is miraculous and He gave me another miracle in being able to hold her again. Two, she was soooo warm. The warmth of her skin and her body radiated from her and warmed me. It was awesome. And that was all there was to my dream. Very short and simple, but so wonderful. I loved that God gave me that dream the night before Mother's Day. He reminded me that I will hold her again and it will feel even more wonderful than I can imagine.
David spoke these words after his infant child died: "I will go to him, but he will not return to me." 2 Samuel 23
No comments:
Post a Comment