How to Celebrate Mother’s Day Without a Mom

“There’s a story behind everything, but behind all your stories is always your mother’s story… because hers is where yours begins.”
-Mitch Albom

I praise Mitch Albom as a man of words, because he phrased my outlook in life much better than I ever could. Albom is the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a novel I read in 8th grade, as well as a novel I could not personally relate to until a few days after my 8th grade graduation, when my mom became one of the five people I would hope to meet again in heaven. 

Six years have passed since I last celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom. Whereas, for the last five years, I have spent that holiday hiding in my sheets hoping that by keeping my sheets hidden shut, it would in turn, keep my heavy heart hidden and shut as well.

Let’s be honest- Hallmark created this holiday simply as a business tactic. And for the sake of Hallmark, they should feel beyond fortunate that in the past, I chose to spend this day by wasting it in hiding from a world that banished the one woman I look up to. Because if we lived in a world where my imagination was justified and acted upon (which to certain extents could and should never happen), I would riot against Hallmark and all the nonsense holidays they have created. However, right when I am ready to get out of bed and riot, I remember the one woman I look up to and realize that while I look up to her, she would hate to look down on me in these conditions. Indeed my mom lays under a tomb, yet she would never wish for me to spend a single day of my life as if I lay under a tomb with her.

With all the above said, the best Mother’s Day gift I can give to a mother that cannot celebrate the holiday with her daughter is to get out from under the tomb I have created and not riot. 
Six years have passed since I last celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom. Six years have passed since my little sister and I recorded a video, in which we took turns exchanging some of the various reasons why we love Miss Milagros DaCosta Cajayon, aka the woman we are fortunate enough to call Mom. I will never forget watching my mother cry as she watched us in the video. That was the first and only time I had ever seen her cry, which is why I will not riot against Hallmark. Their creation of made-up, nonsense holidays may be tearjerkers, but the tears relinquished on these holidays do not necessarily have to be tears for a tombstone.

This Mother’s Day, my gift to her is that I will not let her see me cry, and instead, look forward to the day she will be one of the people I meet again in heaven.