Mother’s Day

Mothers Day, A time to honor mothers. A special day just for us! How great is that. Mother’s Day was always an extra special time for us. I’ve had many different Mothers. Spiritual Mothers, a Mother in law and My Mom in heaven now. Mothers do everything. When somethings lost they find it, When someone is hurt they heal it. Even when your grown your mom still heals your pains emotional or physical.

When I was a kid Mothers day was a time we made sure our mom stayed in bed and then we set loose in the kitchen. We made french toast (My mom’s least favorite) Then one time I thought why waste the left over dip for the bread and I fried cinnamon eggs. I never knew she didn’t like french toast until I was an adult and tried making it for her for breakfast. Cinnamon eggs went down in history as the worst thing on earth. Thankfully we always had a dog she fed those things to so that we never knew she didn’t like it. The dog wouldn’t even eat the cinnamon eggs they were that bad. We would then place the plate on a beautiful tray then a flower and bring her orange juice.

In my family special days like birthdays and mothers day were ALWAYS elaborate.  It was an all day occasion. We would wake up to my mom serving us a delicious breakfast in bed. Not cinnamon eggs, but probably our favorite breakfast like waffles or pancakes along with sausage and maybe even toast and eggs. She would get up early and then most times she even went to the store before she prepared a full breakfast for us.  It was laid out on a beautiful tray and We felt like queens. In fact we never really needed a special occasion for her to give us breakfast in bed. There was a time I brought some of my friends home to stay overnight with me and she served all of us breakfast in bed. It was a special occasion to her to  just have my friends stay overnight! This is just what moms do.

When I knew my first mother’s day without my mom on earth was coming, I wanted to do something that  would help us with our grieving process. While most of my kids are still small enough they don’t really grieve. My oldest has been having trouble crying at night missing my mom. So I decided to send letters to heaven on balloons. We wrote our letters to my mom telling her how much we love and miss her. Then we sent them off into the sky. It was really helpful to me and my grieving. I know they didn’t actually go to her. My kids seemed to really like drawing hearts and pictures on the balloon and writing I love you and I miss you.  We also had some hard questions to answer, Like does Mammie read these and will she see them? Its hard to explain something that your not really sure about yourself. I know she is in heaven but we don’t know if she sees us. I explained to them that Mammie’s spirit is in heaven and we do know she is having so much fun worshiping Jesus everyday. They felt better sending them off to her and I did too. I hope to make this a yearly Mothers day tradition.

Yesterday my family celebrated me too. They gave me a cinnamon roll for breakfast, took me to dinner and we finished the night with our balloon ceremony and ice cream with strawberries at home with A’s parents.

Sometimes Mother’s Day isn’t a joyful day. Sometimes its very hard. My Mother’s day this year was very hard for me. It was hard to handle not being able to see or hear my moms voice. It was hard because sometimes my expectations cloud what I should really be focused on and I have a bad attitude because my husband isn’t living up to what I think mother’s day should look like.  Sometimes it is really special when I look at the important things. My kids and my husband and how much I love watching them play together and interact. I am Thankful for the time we can have together and hopeful for the future.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mom’s out there. Thank you for all that you do for your family. Some of you even do things for people who are not your family and are spiritual mothers. Thank you for everything you do.

Signing off from one woman to another .

Jenny Ren