I have to admit, I get spoiled on Mothers Day. My husband and children always do their very best to make sure I am treated like a queen that day. I love it and am very grateful that I have such a wonderful man in my life who teaches his children to honor their mother. It’s an incredible blessing. I know that there are many mothers that don’t get that special treatment and Mothers Day turns out being a very hard day for you. If that is you, and you are reading this, I want to say ‘thank you.’ Thank you for your selfless life you live, for your endless nights of worrying, for your prayers, for your tears, for your hardships. Mom’s everywhere… THANK YOU!!!

As I sit down to write today, I am accompanied by a cup of coffee, a chocolate that I received at church today, and a box of kleenex.

The coffee is because I have some insane addiction to it and even though it is 9:00 at night, my body is craving a cup of its steamy goodness. The chocolate is because its Mothers Day and I think its okay that I indulge a little. After all, it was a gift, it just wouldn’t be right if I let it go to waste, right? RIGHT???
The Kleenex is because I have decided to open my heart up a little bit and I know it will be followed by a Noah’s Ark-like flood of tears.

I always have a ‘moment’ on Mothers Day where I sneak away as emotion takes over and I think about my mom. I lost her 15 years ago to a battle with cancer. I was 15 years old (almost 16) and was my mothers only child. I remember sitting next to her on the couch where she laid dying and holding her hand pleading with her not to go. I remember telling her that I could not be by myself without her and she just simply had to stay. She then looked at me with the look only a mother can give and said, “You’ll be fine, I know you will be. Your dad loves you and he will take good care of you.” What’s a daughter to do without her mother?

It was so hard to think of life without my mom. She was my best friend, and I mean that. I didn’t really have any close friends, she was my close friend. I would rather spend all my time with her than be with anyone. I am not sure if that was healthy or not, but maybe God knew she would be leaving early so He made sure we spent as much time together to make up for the time that would be lost.

She was there for everything, always in the background smiling and cheering me on. I used to sing and I remember before I would go on stage I would say to my mom, “Please try not to cry this time, Mom.” I would be standing on stage singing my song and I would glance at my mom and there she was just bawling like a baby… it never failed!
We would drive around the city listening to music, go for coffee every morning before school and then again after school, go for walks and have snowball fights, Saturdays we would go for ice cream. The list could go on. She was full of life and laughter.

Everything seemed to flow like clockwork until that day. I remember her standing in the bathroom where we would get ready together in the morning and she looked over at me and told me she thought maybe something was seriously wrong with her physically. As, I listened to her explain the symptoms, I knew that something was seriously wrong. I wasn’t scared, I thought she would live. I never once imagined her dying. What followed next was many tests, doctors appointments, and so on. It was a quick couple of months before the sight that became normal to see was my mom lying on the living room couch on a 24 hour basis. It was my father, my grandmother, and I that would take turns caring for her. My father would research countless remedies to help save her life. We juiced our meals, we all took vitamins, we sanitized everything in a particular way. Life was put on hold as we scrambled around trying to save her life.

Then came the Saturday morning I will never forget. I was standing in the kitchen making “juice” for all of us. Dad came into the living room and sat down by my mom’s side and began to talk to her. He called me in to come sit with them. I stopped what I was doing and moved into the living room and sat at my mom’s feet at the end of the couch. My dad began to tell her that if she was fighting to stay alive for us, she didn’t have to do that. If she was tired of fighting we would let her go. Then she proceeded to tell us that she was so tired of fighting and that she just wanted to go home to Heaven. My father and I told her we loved her and that we would miss her terribly but we would release her from the fight.

You know as I write this and look back at that moment, and I remember how I felt there are no other words to describe it, except “GRACE.” God’s grace making it possible for us to walk through that moment of time, to be able to have the conversation, and to be strengthened for the days that would be ahead of us. Peace would be what would lead the way up until her death. Grace and peace came down at that moment and surrounded us so that we would be able to walk through what was to come.

Her decision was made. She called for her friends and family to come so she could say goodbye to them. This was all very surreal, as I am sure it was for everyone. Her pain suddenly began to increase and it was very hard watching her become very weak at a rapid pace.

As I prepared myself for my mother passing, I recalled that every time she left the house she would write me a note. It didn’t matter the length of time she would be gone for, I always got a note. If she was going to the grocery store, I got a note. If she was going for a walk, I got a note. If she was leaving for a week on business, I got a note. In my school lunches, I got a note. These notes always ended in, “I love you kiddo!” You know, I still have every one of those notes! I decided that it was only fitting that she leave me a note before she left this earth.

I went and sat with her and told her that I would miss her like crazy and this was the most indescribable feeling to realize that I would be losing her, but I asked that she leave me a note before she died. It was then she told me, “Of course, I am already working on it, you know I never go anywhere without leaving you a note.” Okay, now the Noah’s Ark tears have begun.

It was two weeks from the day she decided to give up the fight, that she passed away. My father, my grandmother, and I sat with her for most of the night as she slept. We decided it was bedtime, and said our ‘goodnight’s.’ We headed to our bedrooms, except for my grandma who was going to do the ‘night shift’ with mom. We all crawled into bed for about 10 minutes when we instinctively got back out of bed to sit back with mom. It was as if we knew that this would be ‘the night.’

I sat by mom on one side and began to sing to her every song that I had ever sang to which she would usually have been in the crowd bawling like a baby. This time she was my audience and I was singing to her. She passed away that night.

It was a very hard couple of years for me, as I was 15 and I needed my mom. I missed her. I remember I was 17 years old and I was living on my own. I was laying in bed in my apartment, it was probably 3:00 in the morning and I had awoken in tears like I usually did every night. This week in particular had been different though, I would awake to hear this verse ring in my head, “Isaiah 60:20.” At this particular point in time, I was so mad at God, I wanted nothing to do with Him. Still, every night I would hear that same verse. I finally looked for a Bible, and when I opened it up to the verse I would find this: I will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning will be no more. I knew at that exact moment that God was real. That only He could see my tears and only He could feel just how much I hurt. That moment changed everything for me, to know I had someone who was hurting right along with me. That He felt a need to wake me up every single night just to show me that He saw, that he felt, and that He hurt too.

I think if there was any moment in time that I look back to the most, it’s that time. The moment I knew I had the Father of the Universe watching over my heart. It’s what changed everything for me. I know that my day-to-day trials, my big trials, my hurts, and my wounds, I have Him watching over me and caring for the big issues and the small.

I miss my mom like crazy. Sometimes I really need to talk to her. There are just some things that I need to ask her, like when did I walk as a baby? What was I like? Did you breast feed? How the heck do I cook this chicken? What’s beautiful is God sends you this group of amazing women to surround you and help fill that void. To help teach you how to cook, how to raise your children, how to love your husband, how to get through life, and all the other ‘how’s’ that are out there. I have many women I could send a million thank you’s too.

So to the Mom’s who were never able to have children, You’re needed! To the Mom’s who selflessly gave up their children, You’re needed! To the Mom’s whose babies have grown up and moved away, You’re needed! To the Grandma’s, Aunties, and Stepmom’s, You’re needed.

To all the ‘Mom’s’ who God sent my way to help fill that void in my life, THANK YOU and Happy Mother’s Day to you all.