Mom’s Day

One of my favorite memories of Mother’s Day is a picnic we had when I was a teen with my grand parents, a great Aunt and a family we were close to. We went for a drive up north as our family did in those days and had a picnic at a park some where. I remember making plans for some special things for the mom’s of the group. I baked up a strawberry short cake and bought them each a pretty little pink rose corsage to wear. Each of those women was special to me in various ways. It felt right to honor each one of them.

This is a special time of year to pause and reflect on the mom’s of our lives.

The mom’s of our lives can come in various forms from the woman who gave us birth, to the mother of the partner in our lives; to a dear woman friend we’ve come to trust, to a special aunt and grandma.

The nurturing we get from those mom’s of our lives helps us grow through out our entire life.

No mom is perfect at the job of parenting

Some of us were fortunate to have birth mom’s capable of giving us “good enough mothering”—a term I recall from social work school. If a mom doesn’t get “good enough mothering” from her mom it makes it very difficult for her to give that to her children.

If we don’t get “good enough mothering” we are left with holes inside that we need to learn how to fill in healthy ways during our life time. Other kinds of mom’s can provide us nurturing and help us grow.

Each mom in our life has a story of her own life journey that impacts who she is and the choices she makes.

For some of us Mother’s Day is filled with pain and longing for a mom we never had. For some of us Mother’s Day painfully reminds us of the mom that we’ve lost.

I believe we each are doing the very best we can at any given moment in our lives—our mom’s did too.

On this Mother’s Day we can pause and reflect on the mom’s of our lives noticing with gratitude what they brought to our lives and with forgiveness for the mistakes they made too. We can use this day to nurture ourselves with the tools of gratitude and forgiveness.

What special memories do you have of the mom’s in your life and Mother’s Day?