For many years, Mother's Day was one horrible day.  I couldn't wait until it was over.  I used to feel that way about Valentine's Day and Father's Day.  Now I had Mother's Day to add to the collection of Days Devoutly Wished To Be Done With.

The first Mother's Day after my mother died, I was sitting at a table in the patio in front of Nordstrom in Walnut Creek.  It was a beautiful afternoon, Broadway Plaza blooming with tulips. I was still in shock that my mother was dead.  I kept waiting for her to appear, surely she was here somewhere, just like when the phone rang, I always thought she was calling. But she didn't show.  I drank coffee and read student papers.  I looked up now and then at the mothers and daughters walking around, shopping.  I gazed out at the mothers and grandmothers pushing baby strollers. I stared at the window display of grandmother and mother and daughter mannequins wearing matching outfits and wide brimmed hats. I was surrounded by mothers.  I had a panic attack and then after getting my head out from between my knees, I graded my papers, spilling coffee and tears and smudging up the already wobbly grammar.  I felt so sorry for myself.  I didn't have a mother, and I wasn't a mother, and I most likely wasn't ever going to be a mother.  I was one lost motherless non-mother.

Almost twenty years have passed since that first grief-wracked Mother's Day.  For a long time, it didn't get any easier.  My husband is so sweet.  On Mother's Day, he always sends me flowers from Zooey, our cat.  We weren't able to have a child, and adopting seemed overwhelming to us.  I think it was simply not meant to be.  But I battled with the sadness over it, with the decision or lack of decision. Adopting was too much cogitation. We were older, we were set in our ways. Other concerns.  Okay, let's not.  But then I'd say, Oh, let's!  No, let's not. I remember seeing a t-shirt somewhere, this Daisy Mae-looking character, her hand on her woeful forehead, a bubble above her saying, "Oh, no, I forgot to have a baby!"  All joking aside, this was tough, for about a decade.  And no mother to talk with about it. Then, right after recovering from Mother's Day, Father's Day rolled around in June like a ball of lead.  My father and I are close again, he has truly made amends in his lifetime, and now I do admire him.  But in the first years after my mother's death, there was the agonizing job of trying to find an appropriate card for Father's Day.  I stood in the card store, flipping through statements such as, you've always been there for me; I just can't stop admiring you; you're the world's best dad.  Nope, not that one, or that one, or that one.  Where are the cards that say, you were occasionally there, hungover and sullen, but I understand now that I'm forty and have spent a fair amount of time drinking too much and thousands of dollars on therapy figuring out why I got married three times to complete losers, two of whom had the same first name--yours. I couldn't find that card anywhere.

This Mother's Day, I'm gardening in my jungle of a yard with Zooey the fabulous kitty.  At some point, I will say to Zooey, like I always do, "You are the best cat, the most beautiful cat, the smartest cat in the whole wide world."  Then she will prove me wrong about being smart by chasing her tail and biting it so hard she yelps and tries to run away from herself, hiding in a pile of fern prunings.

I will call and wish two marvelous mothers a wonderful day, my sisters.  Cherish is the word for them.

May the tulips bloom for your mama.