Mother's Day

So I finally read my Book Club Book (two days after my Book Club met to dissect it) and I’m feeling a little discombobulated.

The book was “How to Be Lost,” and it’s about the current lives of three sisters and their mother about 16 years after the youngest of the sisters went missing. Everyone’s wacked out, of course, each in a different way. The mother, who never got over a great many things in her life, including the loss of her daughter, dies about three-quarters in. The book is very much about motherhood; no one seems very good at it and you wonder if anyone ever gets it right. A little morose for a gray and rainy, cold-ass Mother’s Day, which is what I get for not reading it on time.

I read the book sitting on the floor by couch while Alison slept on the couch. The pollen count has done a number on her and she didn’t sleep very well last night. Every once in a while, she’d open up her little eyes, cough and hack like an old man, see me and settle back into sleep. While my old bones sometimes groaned, in a strange way, it was a good way for me to spend this Mother’s Day.

Much as I wish she’d been a different kind of mother, I miss my mom. I miss my mother-in-law, who was much more like the mother I always wanted. While you’d think I’d be used to it by now, it’s still weird not to have to find just the right Mother’s Day card or not to have Alison work on some art to celebrate the day. I know I'm not the only one to have lost this yearly chore, but the fact that I'm not alone in it doesn't really make me feel any better.

I was, of course, showered with gifts, flowers, hugs, kisses and a new work from my favorite artist and her father this morning. I even got cards from my sister- and father-in-law – so I’ve got nothing to complain about and a lot for which to be grateful.

I'm choosing at this minute to ignore the rain an d concentrate on the grateful part. So -- if you can -- go be nice to your mom today. If you can't do that anymore, send up a signal. She might still be able to get it.

And if your mom isn't (or wasn't) quite the kind of mom you always wanted, I’ve got a book you can read…..you’ll like your own just fine in no time.