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.

The Hand of a Preschooler: Mother's Day Reflection

It happens; things are moved, hidden items appear. I think that's some sort of law of nature. If it's moving a dresser to fit another piece of furniture into the room, what appears might be as nondescript as a couple of dust bunnies. You haul out the vacuum cleaner and let the evacuation begin. Run the Hoover over the spot and a dust-free carpet emerges. But if it's a tender memory that has been hiding, well, then, you bring out the tissues.

When Carl and I got a new king mattress and bed, we had to move the highboy dresser to make room. I expected dust. Dust and I are old pals, and I think she really likes me because I let her hang around, sometimes for weeks.

But it was what I didn't expect that got me emotional. There, along with the dust behind the dresser, was a Mother's Day card. Not only was it brittle with a rip in it, but it was from my son Daniel who died in 1997.

Wow.

On the light blue faded paper were his hand prints, a glitter heart, a heart in marker, and a few other squiggly lines, the kind preschoolers draw that hold hidden meaning no one else knows about. His teacher must have written the words for him: Happy Mother's Day, Love, Daniel. I wondered when this was created, perhaps something he had done in Sunday school the Mother's Day he was three. His last Mother's Day to give me a gift.

These are the kinds of things that you are relieved to find: Lost keys, eye glasses, a check for a nice sum of money. Finding a card from a child who has been gone from you for over twenty years falls into a whole different category. You aren't relieved because it wasn't lost. You are grateful. And a feeling of sacredness falls over you. The discovery of something he created is a sacred love letter that shouts out again and again: He lived! And he loved.

I suppose I placed the Mother's Day card behind the dresser when I first moved to the house. Probably with the intention to do something with it. Most likely thinking I'd find a real place for it. One day. And one day turned into fifteen years because you know, out of sight, out of mind. 

I ran a finger over the two hand prints on the card. Right-handed prints. Daniel was left-handed. But in the hospital it was his right hand that I held that night he was having trouble getting to sleep.

"Mommy, where's your hand?"

I was in the chair bed next to his hospital bed. And he reached over the railing of his bed for my hand, I gave him mine. Holding hands against a cold hard railing got uncomfortable. When I thought he was asleep, I pried my fingers from his.

He wasn't asleep. "Mommy!" His tone was accusatory. "Mommy, where's your hand?!"

"Here it is." I put my hand out for him to grab.

And he did, clinging to it until, at last, he fell asleep.

That right hand was the same hand I held when we walked across the mile-high bridge at Grandfather Mountain. He was three, nine months before he was diagnosed with cancer. The bridge swayed in the wind. Daniel held tightly to my hand, not because he was afraid, but because I was. We walked together all the way to the other side. I wasn't sure I would make it. Frightened by heights and feeling paralyzed, I thought I'd wind up as the only person to need a helicopter to pull me off the bridge. When Daniel and I got to the safety of the other side and off the bridge, I almost kissed the ground.

This Mother's Day I'm grateful for memories and soft tissues. I've found over the years that emotions are never far, and sometimes they still surprise.

Happy Mother's Day to all the bereaved mamas out there who'd covet and treasure one last time to hold the hand of a son or daughter. May you find those gentle memories. Hold them close and remember.

And Daniel, thanks for the love.

A novel and a cookbook make spring bright

I've always loved looking through cookbooks, so no wonder each of my novels has recipes in the back. Still Life in Shadows has a recipe that will make you smile because it is baked in a coffee can.  Over the years, I've published three cookbooks of memories on my own. All have been in memory of my son Daniel, who died at age four from cancer treatments. The recipes in the cookbooks are compiled from many who have also lost loved ones. People write to tell me that they love the stories and recipes in the books. There are recipes for simple things like a grilled cheese sandwich, to the elegant----a chocolate cake and a Caesar salad with anchovy paste in the dressing.

Still Life in Shadows is a novel about an ex-Amish man named Gideon who lives in the mountains of North Carolina and helps other Amish escape the old Amish life.  I think it's a realistic view of the harshness of many Amish families, not sugar-coating the lifestyle nor omitting the many problems that are faced.  There's also a young autistic girl and her sister who runs a diner. Readers have cheered me on for writing a story of struggle and redemption.  And while my other novels with Bethany House and Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas have females on the covers, this one (published by Moody/River North) has a man (and look at him, who wouldn't want to meet him?).

So what do my novel and cookbook have in common besides recipes and stories?  They are now available together at a great deal.  Not as e-books, no. But as real soft cover books with actual pages!

Both Memories Around the Table and Still Life in Shadows are being offered here for a low, low price.  I hope you'll take advantage of this offer.  Both books will be sent to you for just $9.99 with free shipping.  Or get a copy of Still Life in Shadows by itself for $8.99 with free shipping. Offer is good in USA only!

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Two books or one book

Both books $9.99 USD Still Life in Shadows Only $8.99 USD