When Mother's Day Doesn't Have Your Mother

sometime around 1995ish, with sister Julia and my mom. 

My mama, with her mama. This must have been around 1964.

I'm going to be honest here. This is another "first" for me, and something I hadn't put too much thought into, however as we got closer to today, I realized that, yes, in some ways it is painful, and yet, in other ways not.
It is Mother's Day, and while I am a mother myself now, I haven't really ever thought about that fact much. For me, Mother's Day always has been about celebrating MY mother. I always got my mom a card, chocolate,  and flowers (more often than not it was a house plant or something to plant in the garden).

my mom and dad.

This year is different. So very, very different. It's the first year without my mom. And for a little while, I was kinda down about it. Simply because I could feel that it was yet another thing that I have to celebrate without her (her birthday on February 25th was another tough day).

And then I began thinking. So what, she's not here. For me, the day was/is more about remembering her and thinking of all the ways that I'm happy that I got her as a mom.

my mama and two of her sisters, 2017. 

My mom was an incredible person. She was super talented, a true extrovert, and a highly sensitive person, with a great, great capacity to love. She picked out people that were suffering, lonely, or needed a friend (often to the dismay and awkwardness of us children), and that sometimes meant just stopping on the side of the road to talk to someone, and inviting people home for dinner from the grocery store. She loved books, and music (she had a beautiful voice), she loved plants and learning, but more than anything in the whole wide world, I can say with true confidence, she loved her children.

My mom loved being a mom. From the time that she was small, all she wanted to do was be a mom, and that's what she lived and breathed. And, what's more, she didn't just want to be a mom, she wanted to be the BEST mom. Something that, even with a tendency to overdo it, she did very well.

with my brother on his graduation from college. 

This might be Mother's Day without my mom, but there is still so much that I have to celebrate. I get to celebrate each year and remembered that the mother I did have was the very best mom in the world, and even with her gone, I wouldn't trade her for any other.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama. I love you.