[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ay is now far behind us. Flower sales have returned to a normal level, brunch reservations have scaled back down, and the surge of posts honoring and thanking moms on my Facebook feed has dwindled back down to near non-existence. As Mother’s Day memories wash away in the rain, we make way for electronics sales, grill recipes, and an Internet surge of “World’s Greatest Dad” tributes.
The Tears We Cry
My son made me a mama just a week after Mother’s Day in 2011 and this May brought me my first Mother’s Day with a daughter. It was also, however, the second without my own mom. In just a few weeks, I will celebrate my husband as my siblings and I spend our fourth Father’s Day without our dad. I’ve read a lot of posts on what it’s like to miss your mom or dad on the day the rest of the country is honoring theirs. And a lot of it really resonates; it’s an odd feeling to allow myself to be honored as a mother while simultaneously missing my own. Or figure out how to show appreciation for the man I love most while trying to memorialize the man I loved first.
My husband’s mother passed away in 2006. I flew with him to Texas for the funeral, and people kept asking me how he was doing. When I finally found a quiet moment to ask, he told me he was okay right now. He realized already, though, that this was the easy part. Everyone was thinking about her, loving her, and missing her at the same time in the same space. It was the later that would be harder.
He was right. I knew it then but I understand it now. There’s something about a memory that comes alive when it’s shared across minds– passed between thoughts so that it forms new dimensions. My mom was so important to so many people, and on Mother’s Day, we share a communal loss. I received multiple messages of sympathy and remembrance, and I know that even those who I did not speak to missed my mom with me that day. And in that way, she became almost corporeal again.
But the truth is I miss my mom every day. I still miss her, even though Mother’s Day has passed, and I miss my dad, even 
before Father’s Day has started. Both of my parents stay with me in some layer of my thoughts all the time. On some days, they are drawn to the front — their lives are brought back into focus by shared sentiment, story, or memory. But those are not the days I miss them most.
I have been dreaming about my parents a lot lately. Usually, a part of me knows that I am dreaming. But in those mid-night moments when my eight-month-old daughter’s cries pull me from my mom’s presence or stop my dad’s stories just short of his punchline — those are the hardest times to miss them. When I’m driving home and a song makes me suddenly cry because some odd word, or line, or even just melody sends me on a trail of thoughts that leads to my dad. Or when my phone is dead and there’s a fleeting moment of panic that my mom is trying to reach me (she had a dangerous combination of paranoia and imagination). Or when we’re tired and stretched to our limits and I long for the people who loved me in a way I never truly understood until I had my own children. Those are the times I miss them most.
It’s the Laughter That Keeps Us Coming Back for More
In all honesty, for me, neither Mother’s Day nor Father’s Day brings bitterness with the sweet. Like everyone else, they are days for me to think about how much I love my parents and everything they did for me. They are days for me to reflect on how much I love being a mom and how I’ve fallen in love all over with my husband and the remarkable father he is. They are days for me to give thanks to my Godmother, to my children’s grandfather, to their aunts and uncles and all those who may not fill a parent’s place but overflow their own. Of course, I wish I had my mom to hug and my father to laugh with, but those are not feelings of emptiness. To be full of both so much love and so much longing at the same time somehow fills any holes before they have a chance to open. I am thankful for all the people who extended their love to me on Mother’s Day and who will think of us on Father’s day. I am okay right now.
