In a moment of lucidity, she mouthed ‘I love you,’ before leaving us.
Mother’s Day weekend is an especially tender time for our family this year. My husband’s mother’s funeral and burial will be held on Saturday. Her death has left my husband an orphan. Even though he has been gone from home for more than 45 years, he has been actively mourning his mama. It’s been so tender for us to mourn with him.
His mom was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and while her decade-long dementia stole most of her memories, she still remembered simple church songs.
Two weeks ago, my husband and I and our youngest had the opportunity to travel to the Midwest to say goodbye to her before she died. Mom was not aware of us or her surroundings most of the time we were there, but at one point, still semi-conscious, she started humming “I am a Child of God.”
It was both a tender and powerful moment as the family members in her room began singing some of her favorite songs to her. With a few exceptions, we are not particularly musically inclined — and no one cared. The next day, we did a video call with as many grandchildren as could join. We ended the call singing “I am a Child of God.” Before we left to drive back home, we said our goodbyes. In a brief moment of lucidity, she opened her eyes, made eye contact with us and mouthed, “I love you.” She died two days later.
As we celebrate her life and remember her impact on our lives this Mother’s Day weekend, I am reminded that Mother’s Day can be a tender time for others as well.
This year will be a tender one for my daughter with her brand-new baby, for happy reasons. She is in the throes of that early postpartum period, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and also swept up in an all-consuming love she didn’t know was even possible. It makes me wonder if my mother-in-law felt the same after her babies were born. I have to think she did.
It’s not just death that can make Mother’s Day a tender time. Sometimes, it’s just too painful a topic. Maybe it never worked out, in spite of desperately wanting to be a mom. Infertility, adoption, miscarriage, or dealing with the death or chronic illness or disability of a child can make it all just a bit too raw.
I remember the gut-punch Mother’s Day felt like when it came on the heels of a miscarriage. This year, my heart is drawn out toward the mama in our neighborhood who just buried her nine-year old after he was hit by a car on his way home from school. Her Mother’s Day will undoubtedly be exquisitely tender.
I am aware that some moms may dread Mother’s Day because domestic violence doesn’t stop for a date on the calendar. Or they don’t know where their next meager meal will come from. Or maybe their child is caught up in addiction, sits in jail or has become estranged from the family.
Sometimes, the Mother’s Day messages seem to focus on an impossible-to-reach “ideal” view of motherhood, filling those hearing those messages with guilt and sadness that they don’t measure up. When I was in the throes of raising our children, I tried to do “all the things” — I cooked homemade meals, grew a garden, bottled fruit, sewed clothes, rocked babies, changed diapers, helped with homework, went to sporting events. And, for many years, it felt like no matter what I did, it was never enough to measure up to being an ideal mother like June Cleaver — or the ones talked about at church.
Here’s the thing about funerals and the passage of time, though. They help us reflect on the past and we can see things through different eyes. My husband grew up in a family with really tight finances. His mom had to hold the family together in so many ways. When I first married Greg, I heard stories about some of the “creative” meals they had, using leftovers in ways others might not have thought of. Now, my husband and I can look back and see a mother who did everything she could to keep her children fed and clothed. Greg says she could stretch a dime into a dollar, and that’s a remarkable skill.
Now that my children are all adults (except for the grandchild we are raising), I see my own mothering through different eyes, too. I can remember the hard times, but those memories are softened by also remembering the sweet and tender times. I remember rocking not only my babies, but also older children who had just joined our family. I remember a day up in the mountains when my oldest, then just eight years old, splashed in a creek, threw rocks, played in the dirt and then proclaimed it “The best day ever!” I remember laughing toddlers and teens who wanted to talk into the wee hours.
I am blessed to be a mother and this weekend, I am extra thankful for Mom Richardson, who leaves behind a legacy of love.