Today you’ll scroll social media, as you often do, wasting time and lost in distraction. It will be much different than the days before because today is Mother’s Day. Your screen will be filled with mother-daughter hugs, teas and breakfasts, gifts and cards, and things that are simply not possible for you— a daughter with a mother in heaven.
You’ll scroll and see smiles and new memories being made and it will be a complicated mixture of pain and gratitude— happy for those who still have their mother, devastated that you no longer do. You wholeheartedly know the powerful influence of a mother and you wish you still had yours.
You’ll scroll and feel broken.
You’ll scroll and feel jealousy, then guilty for that reaction.
You’ll scroll and feel the hole that exists inside of you.
You’ll feel pain in places that most cannot understand.
You’ll be missing the greatest woman to exist, your mother– which makes Mother’s Day cruel and lovely at the very same time.
And when you find yourself lost in the scroll of a feed full of joy and happiness, and celebration of people still here, living and loving— look here. To this feed. To this scroll. To this place filled with influence and love so powerful, it comes from the farthest places imaginable. It comes from heaven. It comes from the mother’s still loving us unwaveringly from eternity.
These are the faces of the mothers gone too soon. The ones missed fiercely with each new day and new experience. These are the mothers that no longer fill seats; but fill spaces— spaces all around us, invisible to the eye but not to the soul. The kind of mother who is no longer present, but has a presence that cannot be ignored or forgotten.
Look at these smiles.
Look at these faces.
Look at these women worth celebrating, no matter how long it’s been since that final goodbye, no matter how long since they were buried beneath dirt decorated with a stone carved with their name, no matter how long it’s been since they were welcomed into heaven.
Look at this love, the kind that knows no bounds, the kind that knows no limits or end— the infinite love of a mother. And then, glance closer to the love of the children they left behind, still children to her, no matter how far into adulthood they have traveled. These are the daughters and sons who’ve shared their pictures and their stories, the ones who demand their mother’s remain unforgotten and brilliantly memorialized. The ones who say, remember her– all that she was and all that she never got to be. Remember her– the mother who is now in two places at once, here and there, near and far, with us and without us.
Remember her, the mother in heaven.
The mother missed in ways that cannot be expressed, only felt.
The mother that was ours and will remain ours, always.
The mother worth celebrating, even though it looks and feels different from the photos we see across our social media.
This Mother’s Day, breathe and scroll here, where you’ll find the faces of the mothers gone too soon but so incredibly loved and admired. You’ll find the mothers that no longer fill seats; but fill spaces— spaces all around, invisible to the eye but not to the soul. You’ll find the kind of mother who is no longer present, but has a presence that cannot be ignored or forgotten.
You’ll find the mother who will always and forever be celebrated.
Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers with cherished legacies– us. We love you.
