Honoring Mothers Who Have Died

When I was almost 4 months pregnant, with Tyler, my mom died of colon cancer.  My first Mother’s Day came but it was hard as everything reminded me that she had died.  I tried to focus on my mother-in-law, as she was celebrating her first Mother’s Day as a Mamal, but it hurt not being able to give or do something for MY mom.  I decided there would be no more Mother’s Day for me.  I’d merely look at it as nothing more than a day just for my mother-in-law…like a birthday.

On what would have been my 3rd Mother’s Day, Ben came home from work carrying a pot of flowers.  I was angry when I saw him walking up the sidewalk with flowers and I know it showed on my face when he walked into the living room because he quickly said,

“Every year you buy flowers on my birthday for my mom, to say thank you for giving birth to me, like you did for your mom on your birthday.  You don’t do your birthday or Mother’s Day anymore and I thought it’d help if on Mother’s Day you planted flowers for your mom.  Happy Mother’s Day.”

…And, he handed me a pot of 7 daffodils, blooming ever so cheerful and yellow. 

After bawling, I planted them outside by the steps she sat on when the chemo and the cancer chilled her to the bone and the hot oppressive heat would warm her.  We had bought our house from my dad after he married a nice widow, so I walked up and down those same steps daily, remembering how I’d held her there cold and sick.  It wasn’t until I planted those bulbs that I remembered our conversations during those hot, summer days.  Conversations where she knew Ben was for me because I mentioned how he had somehow became my best friend or how she really liked him…

So, even if your mom annoys the crap out of you… honor her because there are those of us who wish for just one more day with our own annoying momma.  How do you remember or honor your momma?

This morning I found out Heidi of Honeybear Lane lost her sister in law, Alice Hansen, to an infection after giving birth to her third child, a little girl. Three children, two little boys and a newborn baby girl will no longer feel their momma’s arms around them.  It was hard at 20 to lose my mother but I can’t imagine what my life would have been like to not have had her there as I was growing up.  Please read and share Heidi’s post at Honeybear Lane.  Join me and donate to the

The Alice Hansen Family Fund

Click here to donate to The Alice Hansen Family Fund

Images of Alice Hansen family are courtesy Honeybear Lane.