Is Your Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Do you get to celebrate your Mother’s Day with your Mother? Your Children? Alone?

Did you know that Mother’s Day was started by a daughter who wanted to pay tribute to her mother’s memory? Yes, that’s right, she wanted to cherish her memories. I have often felt sad for people who didn’t have a mother to celebrate with on Mother’s Day, but looking at it from that perspective puts a new light on the holiday. My life is the opposite, I have to celebrate Mother’s Day without one of my children. As some of you know, Walker’s accident three years ago was on the friday before Mother’s Day, but we did not find him until Sunday, which was Mother’s Day. If my mind drifts back to the trauma of that day, Mother’s Day becomes almost unbearable for me. I felt like it was a dirty trick to make a day that is suppose to be special, so horrific but then, if I am honest, Walker was the one who made me a mother, so it is actually fitting that his departure and Mother’s Day coincide. I can mourn the fact that Walker is gone or cherish the moments he lived. The moments he made us all smile! There were many of those. I can celebrate with the three children who are still here with me! That’s what Walker would want. He would want us to make more memories. After all, he was all about living life to the fullest ask anyone who knew him.

Once you have a child, you are “always a parent”! If your child dies, you go from parenting the child to parenting the memory of the child. It’s a different kind of parenting, but it’s the only option for those of us who have lost children. Thank you for allowing me to continue to “parent Walker’s memory” during this anniversary through my blog. I wanted to share with you something special that happened the night I returned from the river when I was looking for Walker’s keepsakes. Keep in mind it was Mother’s Day. Below is a card that came out of his box. Walker originally gave me this card, four years earlier at his senior Mother’s Day luncheon, at our church along with a flower. This card was there all along but was caught in the top of the box, so when I pulled the drawer open, it popped out and literally hit me in the face. Typical of something Walker would have done. It was almost as if he had planted it there for me to find. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect! It brought a much needed message at that moment. It was as if Walker was sending me his Mother’s Day wishes. Every year on Mother’s Day there seems to be something similar that happens to let me know he is still thinking of me. Wonder what it will be this year?

I can’t wait!