Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is complicated, and different people have very different reactions to it.

Sympathies to all for whom Mother’s Day is a difficult, painful, or complicated day.

Happiness to all for whom Mother’s Day is a joyful occasion to celebrate.

To those who have no strong feelings about it either way, and to those experiencing a mix of these situations, I hope you had as good a day as was feasible.


Today, Kam and I took Kam’s parents to Foothills Park for a Mother’s Day picnic.

It was the first time I’ve been to Foothills Park in many years. It was largely just as I had remembered it.

The picnic was a great success all around. We ate good food, engaged in enjoyable conversation, and contemplated lovely vistas.

Most of the time, Mother’s Day isn’t a big deal for me, and I didn’t expect it to be today.

But Foothills Park is where my father and my brother and I scattered my mother’s ashes, when I was twelve years old.

When Kam suggested going there for today’s picnic, I thought about suggesting going somewhere else. But then I thought it might be a good day for a return visit. And I thought I was doing fine, and that it wouldn’t be a problem.

But sometime around the time, post-picnic, when we arrived at the upper vista point, I started to get sad.

I didn’t say anything; didn’t want to turn it into a sad occasion, or focus everyone on me. And it was still a lovely view and good company, and I wasn’t overwhelmed with grief or anything.

Just sad.

Late next year will mark forty years that Marcy has been gone. I wondered, today, how different my life would’ve been if she’d lived. What she would’ve been like at forty-five, at sixty, at seventy-five this past year. What she and I would have thought of each other in my adulthood.

Friends’ parents have been very good to me over the years. But sometimes I miss mine.

After we left the park, I stopped by K & P & E’s place, where I spent the first ten minutes or so of my visit buried in excited wriggling small dogs, which was a lovely antidote to sadness. Then the human residents and I had a great chat about various topics—computers and books and patterns of society and more. Then I went home and had a lovely visit from M & P & J for the rest of the evening.

The day overall was really good. I got to show off my Tesla Model 3 to multiple appreciative audiences, and have good food and good conversation with people I like and don’t see often enough. I laughed a lot, and got licked by puppers, and mostly wasn’t particularly sad. But it was still a little complicated.

(P.S.: Apologies to people I saw today for not talking about this—I wasn’t really up to discussing it, and the time never quite seemed right. But thank you all for making it a good day.)

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