Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful Mom's out there!

I was reading ND Chic's blog and about her mixed feelings on Mother's Day. Boy, can I relate.

For the record, I love my Mom and because she is no longer with us, Mother's Day makes me sad to no longer have her involved in my life. But my relationship with her was rocky at best. Mom was manipulative, had problems with expressing her feelings, usually very selfish in her behaviours, was not very affectionate with her children, and was greedy when it came to money. Everything was always all about her. Whatever her reasons were for having her 9 children, I don't think it was for the same reasons that I had my children. Perhaps it was just the expectation that once you are married, you have children (Mom got married for the first time in the 50's). She had a rough life that partially defined the person she became. In her older years, she mellowed somewhat, became less physically abusive but then her manipulations for her self preservation reached an all-time high.

I don't tell you all this to badmouth my Mom on Mother's Day. I'm telling you this so you might catch a glimpse of my mixed feelings for my Mom. Even though she was sometimes a less than stellar parent, perhaps even a bad one, she was still my Mom, and I love her despite all her faults. Truth be told, I would do almost anything to have her back just for one day. I miss her still. She's been gone almost 9 years, and I still wish I could talk to her one more time.

My mixed feelings then switch to happiness because I should be able to see my kids and my grandson today. It's my DD1's first Mother's Day as a Mommy! We'll also be going to visit with B's grandmother today and we took his mother out for dinner last night. As she said, it may be the last Mother's Day she has with her Mom, so we will be there to be part of the gathering of his large family. I think it will be wonderful to have five generations of family together in one place again. I'm going to try for another of the multi-generation pictures of Great-great grandma, Great-grandma, Grandpa (hubby), our DD1 and our GrandCub. The number of opportunities that we have to take those pictures are slowly reducing, even though we don't want them to.

I'm going to enjoy my morning coffee, and read some blogs. I may even do some knitting today.
Enjoy your Mother's Day everyone!