Anita Charlot's Blog: My First Mother's Day With No Children...My Yorkie Doesn't Count!

My First Mother's Day With No Children...My Yorkie Doesn't Count!

Mothers have feelings too!

It is Mother’s Day and I’m lying here in the bed with my 4-month-old yorkie reminiscing about Mother’s Days of the past. The little cards the children made at school with misspelled greetings “Happy Mother’s Day Mom…I Lover You;” “Happy Mother’s Day Mom, You’re the Beast!” What about the heart made of clay that could also double for an ashtray? Remember those?!?!?

As the boys grew older they felt that they were too big to make homemade cards, yet not big enough to go to the store (without me or my partners having to drive them) to pick up a card of their own. I was so disappointed when they didn’t take the time to do so OR to at least make me breakfast in bed. Cap’n Crunch in a big soup bowl with lots of milk and ice would have meant the world to me.

Even in the technology age when they could very easily send me a text message or an ecard…I waited patiently yet secretly setting myself up to NOT expect anything so as not to be disappointed again. I started on many occasions to forget their birthdays or worse, Christmas with the same blasé attitude as they had when it came to those days that were special to me.

It is now 9:44am and I have yet to receive a Happy Mother’s Day from either of them. I’m sure they are still sleeping from having stayed up all night being a young college man and a teenager; even a text at midnight would have been wonderful. Am I a little sad…seems like it huh? Ok, maybe a little but one would think I’ve grown accustomed to it now.

There are so many things we do, put up with, overlook, excuse as parents that during times when we should speak up or do the unthinkable to teach those around us how their actions really hurt us beyond our words…we don’t. We feel as though as mothers, wives, girlfriends, friends that if we lead by example then we will be just like those we consider being perpetrators. How fair is this to your truth? Do you know your truth? Are you Living Purrfectly Authentic?

As I type this blog I envision a moment in time when my TRUE Mother’s Day is laid out somewhat in this fashion…

I awake to the smell of breakfast, fresh fruit, and coffee with my favorite creamers. My husband has surprised me and has made sure the children were all present; mine and his with gifts, love, hugs and kisses. As I make my way down the stairs to the kitchen there are streamers, balloons, banners wishing me the best Mother’s Day ever. There are life size posters of special moments captured during the kids’ lives as well as parental moments shared between my husband and me.

They each take turns for a Mother’s Day roast in sharing their most treasured moment and the worst moment. They recall times when I acted like a crazed-woman when having to discipline them for one reason or another as well as a time when they thought that I would have hit the roof but somehow managed to keep it all together.

This is my Mother’s Day vision of some time in the future. A day where I am truly the star, where I come first, where I am acknowledged for all of the hard work, sacrifice, love, understanding, nurturing, compromising that I have done throughout my families lifetime. To truly be honored on the one day that is set aside to honor ME for all that I have been and continue to be for my family.

As I sit there trying to eat my food before it gets cold while tears of joy, laughter, adoration and sheer love run down my face…I am so grateful. I’m grateful for all of the time that we spent together and the time that we spent apart. I’m grateful for having taken my time in dating after divorce and years of searching for love to have allowed God to bring the right man into my life who has since become my husband. I am grateful for all of the women that have crossed my path and have taught me so many things about love from a different point of view.

I am grateful for all of my many lessons; no matter how painful they were and the opportunity to make it through those lessons being so much more in tuned with the reality of who I am. I am grateful for all of the individuals that have crossed my path, whether people I have met along my journey or particular “high profile” people that have mentored me along the way.

But most of all, I am grateful for the ability to control my own mind; for the ability and the courage to speak my mind no matter how difficult and for the blessing of being in my RIGHT mind so that I can continue to create the life that I want based on the truth of what I need in order to live the quality of life that I long for.

To all mothers out there everywhere, regardless to whether or not your mothers day is what you had hoped it to be, know that you are the energy that holds it all together, you are the woman that has given birth to not only your own children but to all children that have crossed your path.

Whether you have given birth to your own children, have fostered countless children, have adopted a child, have taken over parenting a family members child, have inherited children due to a relationship or marriage, work with children or adults that act like children, you are a mother and today is your day.

And before you begin to look at today’s events and wish that they were different…know that you have made a difference in a child’ life somewhere and for that alone…you are a walking personification of the quintessential woman…Happy Mother’s Day!!!