A  Mother's Day;  Bittersweet.

I am the mother of a child who has left me. And that makes Mother's Day very hard.

Recently I was talking to a mother who also lost her child to estrangement. "What about Mother's Day?" she asked, through tears. It was hard to know what to say, because it's a terrible day for those of us whose child(ren) live under the same sky, the same stars, the same sun and the same moon but choose not to follow the light to their mother. 

 Other days of the year you can maybe make it a few hours without thinking about your loss; other days of the year you can pretend that you are an ordinary person and that life is normal. But not on Mother's Day.

On Mother's Day it's in your face that your child is gone, and you fear it is forever. On Mother's Day you can't pretend  that life is normal. All the hoopla, all the Hallmark hype, the handmade cards and flowers and family gatherings, make it almost excruciating.

 See, that's the real challenge after losing a child: moving forward. It's almost impossible to envision in that moment of loss; how can life continue after something so horrible? But life does continue, whether we like it or not. There are chores to do and bills to pay; morning comes, again and again. So you pick yourself up and you live, but you are never the same.

At first, we are different because of our raw sadness. But over time, the sadness moves from our skin into our bones. It becomes less visible, but no less who we are. It changes into a wisdom, one we'd give up in a heartbeat to have our child back. We who have lost children understand love's fragility and beauty. We who have lost children understand that so many things just aren't important. All that is important is those we love. All that is important is each other. 

Nothing else.

It can feel very lonely, being the parent of a child who has  left you, and with that loss, perhaps, your grandchildren, life's promise of your future, your heartbeat continuing on into eternity, several decades of pure joy, deep love, and precious memories.  Especially on Mother's Day or Father's Day. We feel so different from those around us, all those happy people with children the same age our child is, having brunch, getting I love you cards, or funny cards, being honored for what you did to birth them, nurse them, nurture them, protect them, adore them, and did the best you could with the best intentions, with no manual on how to do it. 

I've come to understand that I'm not alone at all.

There is a wonderful Buddhist story about a woman whose son gets sick and dies. And although my son and daughter have not died, the fact that their hearts beat and that they laugh and hurt and celebrate and struggle and live and love without me invited, leaves a horrific, empty hole in my  heart and a grief with no gravesite to visit and no soul to pray to in heaven.

The woman goes to the Buddha to ask him to bring her son back to life. I will, he says, if you bring me some mustard seed from the home of a family that has not known loss. She goes from house to house but can find no family that has not lost someone dear to them. She buries her son and goes to the Buddha and says: I understand now.

That is what I understand now. It doesn't make me miss my children and grandchildren any less, or Mother's Day any easier. But it helps me make sense of it; loss is part of life. There are no guarantees, ever. Our children, and all those we love, are gifts to us for however long we have them.

I understand now too that we are together in this, all of us, in joy and in loss. It's the connections we make with each other that matter -- it's the connections we make that give life value and help us face each morning. 

As G.K. Chesterton wrote, "We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty."

And over time, the words have come to mean more to me. They aren't just about about grief anymore. They are about who I am, what I have learned, and what I can give. And my message that will never get to whom it is intended:

"I will always love you, and I will always be your mother."