Bereaved and Blessed

Whatever you do tomorrow, I hope that you feel the love and support of your family and friends.

I wish you a wonderful day and hope that you get to spend time with people who are important to you.

If you are a mother with living children, I hope that your loved ones, especially your sons and/or daughters, celebrate you and show you how much you mean to them.

If you are bereaved mother, a bereaved daughter and/or are remembering another loved one that left this world too soon, I hope that you find some peace and comfort in remembering those special people who have gone before you.

If you want to be a mother or have another child and your dream has not come to fruition, I wish you patient optimism and hope that it won’t be long before your situation is resolved.

If you are living childfree after infertility, I hope that you still feel special and honored for all the ways that you have touched and nurtured others in your life.

I realize that though Mother’s Day is a very special day for many women, that it is also bittersweet and even painful for some. However you feel this weekend, I want you to know that I care and that my thoughts and prayers are with you.

To all those women and mothers who have touched my life, especially my mother and my grandmothers (who both died in 2000), I thank you for helping me to become the mother that I am today to my living children Sean and Abby. I am also grateful for the ways that many of you help me to keep our baby girl Molly’s memory alive.

Two of my friends and fellow bloggers wrote outstanding posts related to Mother’s Day this weekend that I encourage you to read. The first is an open letter by Lori from Write Mind, Open Heart to those in a position to be preaching and/or speaking in front of women who may or may not be mothers. It is a very thoughtful, sensitive and compassionate piece. I was so proud of our pastor last year on Father’s Day when he shared a beautiful and inclusive blessing for the men in our church community. I would love to hear something similar directed at all the women in our parish at the mass my family and I will attend tomorrow and intend to email our pastor a link to Lori’s post tonight. I also hope that more clergy and lay people will find similar ways on these holidays each year to honor all the women and men who mother/father/nurture children whether they are mothers and fathers in the traditional sense of these words and regardless of if they are holding children in their arms or in their hearts. Click here to read Lori’s post called “Outliers” and if you feel so moved, please share her words with those in your life who might benefit from reading them too.

The second is an awesome blog entry by Keiko from The Infertility Voice filled with “messages of hope” for those still waiting to be mothers and/or parent living children from women who have made it to “the other side” after living through infertility, loss and/or adoption. I am honored that Keiko asked me to share a message for her post and was moved by reading the other messages of comfort, support and encouragement that others wrote. To read Keiko’s inspiring post “On the Path to Mother’s Day” including my words, along with those of other fellow bloggers sharing their “Messages of Hope from Across the Bridge,” click here.

Lastly, a special thank you to my friend Lisa, who gave me a beautiful rose (pictured above) last night at a fun and relaxing gathering she hosted at her home for many mothers in our neighborhood. She had a vase filled with multicolored roses on her kitchen table and as each of left she wished us a happy Mother’s Day and invited us to pick a rose to take home with us. I chose this color because it reminds me of the color of the roses that we bought many bouquets of the day we buried our daughter Molly. Each of our family members placed one on her grave and every year we buy at least a dozen to have in our home around the time of her birthday.

I wish I could give each of you a rose this weekend, but please know that wherever you are at on your journey to, through or beyond motherhood that I am holding you close in my thoughts and prayers and hope that you have a happy day tomorrow.

Update: I emailed our pastor soon after I posted this tonight and already heard back from him! He was planning to share my email with the other priests in our parish, at my request, and shared with me a special blessing that they are planning to use at all the masses tomorrow, which I was impressed to see was already fairly inclusive. He asked for my comments and suggestions, which I gave a few and let him know how much I appreciated his response.

Another Update (5/17/12): I meant to return and share this sooner, but at mass on Sunday morning they had changed the blessing to include my suggestions! I thanked our pastor after mass and was very impressed that he chose to make the blessing more inclusive based on my feedback.

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