Mother’s Day Origins

I was talking to someone over the weekend who was explaining to me the origins of the Mother’s Day holiday.  This person had also lost a child recently and this story was told to her.  After I got home, I had to do some research on my own.

There are many stories about the origins of Mother’s Day taking back to the ancient Greeks to the celebrations we have today.  There have been celebrations tied to the Christian church; to Julia Howe who was so distraught by the violence and death of the Civil War that she called on mothers to protest the killing of other mother’s son by their sons; and to women wanting to create a national holiday to celebrate their own mothers.  There have been fights over the commercialization of Mother’s Day and someone even tried to patent the day.  Through it all, one thing has remained common:  Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate all mothers.  A day to honor and cherish them.  A day to reflect upon life.

I had no idea about the origins and am glad to know more about the history.  Here is a link to one of the sites I found with the history: http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/

It’s the Memorial Day weekend.  Last year for Memorial Day, we took Alexander to Dallas for what we thought would be the first of many Artfests to come in the years ahead.  He’d just celebrated his first birthday about 3 weeks before and was walking comfortably on his own.  The weather in Dallas was unbearably hot.  It’d been a while since I was there and so I forgot how hot it could get. Alexander wasn’t used to the heat and didn’t like it at all.  We tried to keep him inside as much as we could and made sure he had plenty of water to drink.

We got to see several friends and Alexander had the best time dancing and of course flirting.    Here is a link to Alexander dancing at the 2008 Artfest: http://www.totsites.com/tot/dodsonemerson/movies/19258

The Junior League had its Rhythm & Brews Festival this Saturday.  When we decided we’d put on the event, one of my first thoughts was Alexander is going to love it.  He loves music, dancing and being social.  There were lots of kids activities and plenty of room to run around.  He would have had the best time.  It was hard for me to be at the event without him.

One of the vendors at the R&B Festival had met Alexander on a few occasions and so when I saw her, she immediately asked how’s the baby.  With tears in my eyes, I had to tell her the news.  Like everyone else, she was completely shocked and asked if he’d been sick.  We chatted for a few second about what happened and then she gave me a big hug.  As I continue to have to tell people about what has happened to Alexander, it reminds me just how many lives he touched.

We spent a good part of yesterday morning doing yardwork.  Even though we had plans to get the backyard done, I always think of the backyard as Alexander’s 1st birthday present from us because we rushed to get it done so we could have his party in the backyard.  We had lots of good times with him back there and every time I’m back there, I keep waiting to hear his voice or see him chasing tennis balls or trying to water the plants.

I piddled around for the rest of the weekend.  I just didn’t have the energy to do much more.

People are always telling me how strong and how they can’t believe I’m doing all I’m doing.  What they don’t realize is that it continues to be a struggle everyday to get out of the bed, to make sure I eat and just try to be a part of the life that is moving forward without me.  I may seem strong on the outside but inside my heart is broken in an infinite number of pieces that I’m trying to figure out how to put back together again.