It's Complicated

A No Contact Mother's Day

This Mother’s Day is the seventh one that’s passed since I last spoke with my mom.

I hate this fact. Especially since she’s still alive. And I know that there are people who would give anything to spend one more Mother’s Day with their mom.

I hate that I can’t pick up the phone and call her, wish her a Happy Mother’s Day, hear about her week, or tell her what the kids and I will be doing today.

I mourn the mom, the grandma, she might have been if things had been different.

I grieve the absence of that relationship in my life, even though I was the one who decided it had to be this way.

I couldn’t be the person, couldn’t be the mom I wanted to be to my own children under the weight of the harm that relationship was causing.

I tried.

I really tried.

Again and again and again I tried, and always at my own expense.

My own tears the currency.

Seven years.

“But she’s your mom….”

So I’ve heard.

I wish she’d been able to be.

I don’t harbor bitterness toward her, as easy as it sometimes feels that would be.

It might actually be easier if I could hate her. But I don’t.

I miss her.

Or the her she might have been.

If things were different.

And yet I know

When I witness peace on my own children’s faces

Their joy and their ease

That it was

necessary.

They gave me the strength that makes my healing possible.

On this Mother’s Day

I celebrate that Mother’s Day is uncomplicated for my own children.

And I pray it always will be.