By Brenda Wollenberg

Many, many years ago, I caught our oldest two boys quietly conspiring in the hallway—and it wasn’t whispered plans on how to convince mom and dad to take them to Taco Bell. Earlier that day, our six-year-old, the middle child, had come bounding in from kindergarten, fairly bursting with excitement, his hands covered in an almost indestructible combination of glue, poster paint and sparkles. And with a little assistance from their Daddy that morning, our two young daughters had come up with a secret storage place for a brightly crayoned card and a bunch of my favourite freesia. The impetus for all this clandestine activity? An “almost here” Mother’s Day. 

And when that Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful and I had finished up a big plateful of somewhat heart-shaped pancakes and been the recipient of at least a zillion hugs and opened and oohed over the latest round of amazing 'Moms' Day' creations, I spent the rest of the day, as on the other eleven Mother’s Days that I had, up to that point been a mother, with an enormous lump in my throat and an even more enormous sense of gratitude in my heart.  

If the headlines on my latest influx of magazines or news feed are any indication, however, not everyone will experience the upcoming Mother’s Day with the same events or the same emotions. Under the “Quick-Fix Diets” and “Put your best body forward” banners on one glossy cover, comes a very serious and non-superficial title--"Can't Get Pregnant? Modern Baby Making--All the Options". One publication had an article on mourning an unborn child and another, a major piece on adoption. Peruse any of these articles, or the rash of online work on absentee mothers or mothers struggling with significant physical or emotional illness, and it becomes painfully obvious that the flowers, smiling children and glowing-while-slow-motion-running-through-a-grassy-meadow mom scenario is not necessarily a given. 

That long-ago Mother’s Day, I saw close friends of ours in the gathering of our faith community. They were cuddling their wondrously new baby daughter through brimming eyes and thanking God with the intensity that only parents who have lost two previous unborn children can understand.

I'd not seen them in church on a Mother’s or Father’s Day for years. The emotion has been too raw for public display, the pain cutting too deep to share openly.

We had other friends who were not there still. Their years of infertility were continuing, as did their desire to birth a child of their own. There was ebb and flow to their pain, but the reality of it remained constant. At times they were cautiously optimistic; at times there was calm resignation to a family life that included only the two of them. But always there was the undercurrent of grief, at that point anyway, quiet, but with the gut wrench of a loud and haunting wail.  

There are also no appropriate cards for my friend whose mom abandoned her after birth and who was never there to protect her from the abuse that began shortly thereafter—and continued for what seemed like forever. What can a brightly coloured note say to someone who wasn't, because of their own immense pain, able to give you what you needed and who wasn't there to unwrap even one of your glue-sticky tissue covered napkin rings or plaster hand prints. 

This year I pray peace for those women who long to be but are not yet mothers. Single women who want a child, but desire the foundation of a loving stable relationship in which to raise that child. Women who have been unable to conceive. 

I also pray peace for mothers who have conceived a child but who have experienced the tears and pain of motherhood with none of its counterbalancing joys and delight. Mothers whose arms hold no baby because that child died before or at birth. Mothers who placed their child for adoption—who decided the very best birth day gift they could give their infant was to bundle him or her tightly; for a moment at least, to push grief and ache aside enough to somewhat coherently function; and to give that child into the care of another. 

And this year, I pray a double measure of peace for women whose Mother’s Day pain is connected to their own mothers, whether still living or passed on. I pray a washing away of any sadness, sense of loss, anger or bitterness that may be there and the beginning or continuation of the journey to wholeness. 

Very shortly, many of you will be sending off loving Mother’s Day greetings or hearing equally loving “Happy Mother’s Day” greetings of your own. For all of you, I hope this May 10th is special beyond measure. 

For those women whose Mother’s Day falls in between the cracks in the card rack, however, I hope the day passes with a new peace for you as well. 

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Photo: motherthing.com