Mother's Day orphans: When your mom's no longer here

Mother's Day is not my favorite holiday. Father's Day isn't, either. I remember being young and asking, "Why don't they have a Kids Day?"

"Because every day is 'Kids Day,'" I was told.

Yes, kids sometimes have it easy. I know I did. I have no complaints about how I was raised, and I couldn't be more grateful to my mom and dad for their patience, generosity and the hard work they did to raise a sometimes difficult boy. Especially when that boy was enduring the crucible that was (and, from what I hear, still is) middle school. It's not hyperbole to wonder whether I would have survived those years without Mom and Dad.

Which brings me to why, at least in part, Mother's Day and Father's Day aren't my favorite times of year - now, far more than when I was a kid.

First, I'll invite you to look at where the apostrophe is in those names. It's before the "s," which makes it singular, and that's how I always took it. Mother's Day was a day for me to appreciate my mother, and for you to appreciate yours. Here's the rub: I haven't had a mother for 22  years now (and, as of last August, I don't have a father anymore, either).

It's fine to say that all mothers deserve to be appreciated, and I couldn't agree more. They should be appreciated every day of every year they're on this planet.

My mom isn't on this planet anymore. Yes, I still appreciate her. But no, I can't give her a schmaltzy Hallmark greeting card to tell her oh-so-imperfectly how much - and at the moment, I wouldn't want to. I'd just want to give her a hug (even though she was chronically off-balance from the polio that left her half paralyzed as a child), and tell her I loved her so she could hear me.

Please don't tell me she can hear me from heaven or "the other side of the veil," because even believing that wouldn't make it the same. It doesn't for me, and I doubt it does for anyone else, either.

It will never be the same again.

It's not just the winter holidays

I've heard people talk about having a blue Christmas, sometimes invoking the all-too-clinical-sounding term "seasonal affective disorder." They don't enjoy the winter holidays because they bring back memories of times spent with loved ones who are no longer there. Mother's Day does the same thing to me, and if anything, it's worse, because there was only one of her, and this day is supposed to be about that one person.

For years, I've tried to shrug it off and not get too wrapped up in sorrow over it, because my mom's death remains the single most traumatic event of my life. When my father passed away last year, he'd been unconscious in a hospital bed for 10 days, and as hard as it when he died, I'd had time to prepare myself.

When my mother died, it was sudden. I was working one evening when I got a call in the back paste-up shop at the newspaper where I was working (back when they still had such things). I heard my dad sobbing on the other end. He never cried. But when he told me Mom had gone to lie down for a nap and hadn't woken up again, it just didn't compute with me. She had been ill, but not that ill. I hadn't seen her since Christmas, which had been more than two weeks earlier, and now, I never would again.

So, Mother's Day isn't a cause for celebration to me. As much as I appreciate everything mothers all over the world go through for their kids, none of them is my mom. I know the same thing will happen at Father's Day this year, and it will might even hit me harder because this will be my first year without Dad, and the day often fell right on his birthday.

None of this is to say you need to tiptoe around me Sunday. I won't take offense at others who, unlike me, have a Mom who's still here to celebrate. Just excuse me if I feel a little left out. I might not even show it on the outside, but it's there, and I wanted you to know because I doubt I'm the only person who has this kind of reaction. And as important as it is to celebrate your mom (please do!), it's important that you know there are other feelings associated with days like these. 

I still miss my mom. Even if there were 365 days to honor mothers, she'd still be the only one I'll ever have.

For Mom ...

For Mother's Day, I'm posting this photo of my mom, shown here with my dad on one of their many trips - trips she made despite being paralyzed on one side by polio when she was a young teenager.

She never again rode the horses she loved, but there were so many other things she was never supposed to do again.

Yet she did.

When I knew her, her right arm - she was born right-handed - hung all but useless at her side. The only muscles that worked were, oddly enough, in her fingers, which could still grasp things. Her right leg was similarly immobile. She had to swing it out to the side, balancing on her left leg, each time she took a step. Sometimes, my dad helped her up off the couch or steady her as she walked, but most of the time, she did these things herself. Just as she changed my diapers herself, walked up three flights of stairs at UCLA on her way to a bachelor's degree and got a job as a supervisor at Douglas Aircraft on her own.

Her determination to not only survive and emerge from an iron lung - when doctors said she might not - but also walk again after being told it was impossible remains an inspiration to me. But it wasn't the polio that defined her. It was her patience, love, support and willingness to listen without judgement that made her who she was - at least who she was to me. She was Mom.

I knew she'd gotten weaker from a series of strokes in her early 60s, but I never expected the call I got from my father that day at work. It was wintertime, just past the new year, and I hadn't seen either of them since Christmas. Through tears, he told me how she'd gone to lie down for a nap and hadn't awakened. I'd never heard him cry like that. To this day, he speaks of the wonderful life he's had, with his only regret that she left too him soon.

They'd had 39 years together, but it would always have been too soon. I know it was for me.

Mom's been gone more than two decades now, but her example and guidance remain my beacon. I wouldn't be here today without her, perhaps in more ways than one. I only wish she had lived to see me begin to achieve my dreams.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.