What Do Mamas Really Need?

Don't ask me what I had for lunch Friday or when the last time was that I baked a chocolate cake, but ask me about that Mother's Day 1997 and I will recall specific details. Like much about the grieving life, we mothers remember significant dates and places as though they occurred yesterday.

Twenty-three years ago we were at my cousin Amy's for a family gathering to celebrate moms. I'd given birth twelve days before to my fourth child. I was sleep-deprived and adapting to my new daughter who enjoyed challenging me with her tears. To be fair, I'm sure that I challenged her with my bouts of crying too.

At the gathering were cousins, an aunt, and my grandma. My mother, who had flown in from mission work in Japan to help my husband and me, was among us. On a normal Mother's Day I would have relished the family time, but on that particular day I struggled with everything. Three months earlier I'd become something no mom wants to be----bereaved.

Six-year-old Rachel, my eldest, made a card with a lot of flower drawings and included all four of my children's names. From my relatives, I received tight hugs that made me tear up.

That first Mother's Day without Daniel, I needed for all my children to be acknowledged. Even though he was not physically with us, I wanted the assurance that Daniel had not and would not be forgotten by others. I was navigating a new journey named Bereavement and I had to find out how I would continue to carry the memories of him with me.

Mothers need all of their children to be acknowledged. Not just the one that is the smartest or the one who wins the awards in sports or that child who is talented at playing the trumpet. Teach me how to look at each of my children and treasure their inner beauty, vitality, and quirks. Ask about Daniel even though he is not seated around the table.

And then moms need to be acknowledged for who we are---sacrificial, loving, warriors for truth, fighters, expectant, hopeful, forgiving, and with that sixth sense that knows (usually) when we are being lied to by one of our offspring.

We mothers worry over our children's health and grades and futures. We hold onto guilt when we feel we could have prevented something from happening that caused our child pain or suffering. "Right there," my sister-in-law said as she was giving me a back massage years ago when my children were small. She ran her fingers over my shoulders and into that space between them. "This is where mothers carry the weight of the world."

What do mamas really want? It varies from expensive perfume to a strong cup of good tea. Time alone to catch our breath to wanting to know about our child's latest craze.

But besides the frilly stuff or the perfume, dinners out, flowers, handmade cards, and tea, what do mamas need most of all? Gratitude. A sincere thank you works well today. Actually, any day, really. Moms crave the reassurance that even in their inability to possess superpowers, they are doing their best.

Thank you, moms, young, old, bereaved----for being YOU.