I must have said this before...

I stayed home from church Sunday.

Yep.

Skipped it.

It was Mother's Day. One of the quintessential Hallmark and FTD holidays. And I refused to be a part of the celebration at church. Because quite frankly the place that should hold refuge for people in pain forces them to bury it deep down and never let the proverbial Pandora's box open again.

I would like to remind everyone that there are people who ABHOR Mother's Day.

These are the women who have lost children, who want to be mothers and, for whatever reason, cannot, the women who have chosen NOT to have children (let's not treat them like they have a third eye sprouting out of their head, people), the men and women who have lost their mother, the people who don't have a good relationship with their mother, the men who want their wives to become mothers as much as their wives do...basically, Mother's Day is great for those mothers who have good relationships with their children and those children who have good relationships with their mothers.

Don't get me wrong...I think honoring mothers is great. But for those of us for whom that is a painful day, it really is agony to go out in public. Even my yoga teacher on SATURDAY brought up Mother's Day and wished the mothers in the room a happy day and reminded all of us that we all have mothers somewhere and to honor them at some point during the weekend. Maybe one day I will absorb such remarks with my own interpretation. For now, I hear it as it's intended and I DON'T LIKE IT.

I did honor my mom this weekend. I honored her with flowers--purple irises, one of which very fittingly bloomed on Sunday. She always got excited when her irises bloomed in the back yard.
The time I would have spent at church was spent in my nook, doing some things to continue to work through my grief. Yes, four years later, I'm still working.

The rest of the day was spent with my husband, father and my parents-in-law. Al made reservations for the brunch at Bogart's, which I always enjoy. For me, it was a celebration of the end of my first year in the Ph.D. program. I didn't even utter the words "Happy Mother's Day," and I wasn't thrilled about having to sign a card for someone else's mother.

But I did see Iron Man, and that was a nice escape.

I just want to remind all the minister-types who read this that Mother's Day, and, for that matter, Father's Day, needs a MASSIVE overhaul if it's to continue to be observed in the church. Some time in the very near future, I plan to write a note to my pastor and minister of music to remind them that it is a painful day, for probably more than most, and that we need to be sensitive to that fact. Because for those of us who have lost mothers, or in some other way fall into any of the other categories I mentioned above, Mother's Day SUCKS.

Perhaps I'll even compose a litany for such an occasion...