A Mother’s Day without the Hallmark stamp

It is Mother’s Day.

It is hardly the happy Hallmark moment.

Every year, be it publicly or privately, I contemplate, acknowledge and remember the mothers overlooked, forgotten, neglected, unseen and ignored by cardmakers and conventional society.

I give thought to the mothers who have lost their children in infancy, through stillbirths, crib death, deformities, illnesses and more.

I give thought to the mothers whose children have died in accidents and in war. In suicides and in murders. In freak occurrences and tragedies.

I give thought to the mothers whose children are relinquished through adoption and the adoptees who on Mother’s Day give thought to their natural mothers, perhaps known, perhaps not.

I give thought to the sons and daughters whose mothers treat/ed them like pieces of shit. Mother’s Day a warm celebratory event? Bullshit.

I give thought to all mothers brushed beneath the Hallmark carpet. The mothers for whom the day is not a bed of roses — or a bouquet; rather one of grief, loss, pain or sorrow.

The forgotten mothers. Forgotten and overlooked even by mothers riding the waves of their own lives, meals out, corsages and blooms. I never forget.

This post is written for and dedicated to you. To write Happy Mother’s Day would be unkind. Better is may peace be with you; and, just for you, a single flower.