Acknowledging All the Children.....On Mother's Day

Yesterday, I made my mother cry. I didn't mean to make her cry, but it's something that she does everyday just not in front of others. All I did was give her a picture of my brother Brian, taken twenty years ago that a friend had sent me a few months ago. Brian died of kidney cancer in 1999, he was diagnosed the week he turned 42 and died 9 months later. Much to the dismay of my father's stoic yankee upbringing, there are times like yesterday, that my mother just cries when we talk about my brother. I know that my Dad misses Brian just as much as my mother, but it's all how we deal with what we lost. Even now, I still cry.

I had forgotten to buy my mother a mother's card and she had come up to me in Target when I was looking at the cards. She told me not to bother, but I think the picture was better than a store bought card. It was a picture that she hadn't seen before.

What did I learn from giving my Mother the picture? I learned that a Mother never forgets and that it's important to acknowledge the people that we love, whether or not they are still with us.