It's that time of year.  The day mother's all across the globe are celebrated is here.  Children work hard on those beautiful homemade gifts, flowers are ordered, breakfast served, and maybe mom is taken out to her favorite restaurant.  Friendly "happy mother's day" greetings fill the air.  As a child I really never did anything for my mom on this day.  I don't really remember doing much at all as a family on either mother or father's day.  When I became a mom for the first time I never jumped into the holiday-it's one we celebrated but very subtly.  In May of 2010 I declared that Mother's Day would no longer be recognized nor celebrated in our home.  For five years now, when the question of what are you doing for Mother's Day has popped up, my response has been "we don't celebrate", which is often met with strange looks and some shrugs of the shoulder.  I can almost read the people thinking "that's odd but whatever works for you".  

I've never really struggled on or around this day.  I truly believe that is because it was one that was always met with such little fan fare in our house to begin with.  This year, however,as the day has drawn closer I've found myself being more emotional than I have been in a very long time.  I've seen the question "What does Mother's Day mean to you?" all over the internet and I've pondered it.  I've considered it, I've analyzed it, I've reflected on it and with every thought has come one more tear.  You see, it doesn't mean the same to everyone.  It has profoundly different meanings to so many women across the globe and yet when we collectively consider this day it is met with joyful images, heartwarming stories, and pure love.  

What Mother's Day means to me:

• It means remembering my children say hello and goodbye to their new sister at the same time.  
• It means being broken for the rest of my life.    
• It means searching for joy every single day.      
• It means tears in the middle of laughter.      
• It means withdraw.      
• It means a new perspective.  
• It means being split open.    
• It means failure.        
• It means pain.    
• It means acting, pretending, hiding, putting on a mask nearly every single day.
• It means guilt.  Guilt that I saved four but killed one.  Guilt that the way I love the four changed.
• It means a lifetime of wondering.
• It means having my soul ripped out of my body and watching my life from afar.
• It means having conversations I don't want to have.
• It means teaching life lessons I don't want to teach.
• It means being okay and suddenly not.
• It is a yearly reminder not of who I am as a mom to the four amazing humans running circles around me, but rather a reminder of the mom I am not to the one I failed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Being a mom is an experience like non-other.  It is an ever changing circumstance with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  It is different for every mom who has ever walked this earth hand in hand with a small child.  It is profoundly different for every mom who has ever planned their child's funeral.  Having happy, healthy children does not minimize the loss of another child. It does not remove nor lesson the pain, the doubt, the guilt, the anger, that comes with loosing a child.  The internal conflict is often times unbearable-to love with so much while your insides are being ripped apart.  It's two completely opposite emotions running through my veins at the same time creating havoc in my mind, my body; never knowing from one second to the next which emotion is going to hit my heart first.  It is the left side of my brain screaming while the right side is laughing.  It is an epic struggle trying to contain one so the other can prevail, so I can take a step forward.  

Mother's Day...

not a joyous reminder for all.

SistersKeondra saying hello and goodbye to Liliahna. FamilySaying hello and goodbye to Liliahna. SistersKeondra saying hello and goodbye to Liliahna.