Happy Mother's Day, Mama. This is the second Mother's Day of my life that we can't be together. I miss you so much.

Remember how Mother's Day used to be our day, alone? My birthday only a few days away, or occasionally the same day. No dad, no sister, just you and me, the only day of the year that was just ours. We would do things together like bake, or when you were younger we would go to the plant nursery and plant things in my yard. Several years we went to the Botanical Gardens; remember the year we took a class on native plants? Sometimes we substituted Saturday for Sunday so we could do fun things like take a class or sightsee. Once we took the whole weekend and went to Callaway Gardens. We both loved the butterfly house. We stayed in a cabin, and you got suspicious when I let you beat me at Scrabble.

This year, I baked an apple walnut cake and thought of all the delicious things we made together in that Bundt pan. It turned out pretty well, but it was a lot of work. There were lots of apples to peel and chop, and stirring the thick batter was like stirring peanut butter. I twisted my wrist and bent an industrial stainless steel spoon stirring it; sorry about your spoon. I got that recipe from the New York Times. Don't think I'll be making that one again.

I love you. I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whether or not you're a mother now. I will always remember you.

Definitely not my favorite holiday. Working in the store, it's all flowers and cards and "Happy Mother's Day" to me until I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than go on.
My mother died a week before Mother's Day 1996. One of my children is passed, another is in shaky health and maybe worse, becoming more disabled. I know it's irrational but I had three, and while I know one is thriving (and called his mother), I couldn't help the other two. I love my children beyond distraction but TBH if I'd known what could happen, I'm not sure I'd have done it.