It was an interesting Mother’s Day weekend at our house this year. That day has long been interesting for me since my own mother died in 1996. When you’re an only child and your immediate family consists of a cast of three, the loss of one is truly devastating. Until I married my husband, Marty, I never acknowledged Mother’s Day after Mama passed. I wouldn’t go to church on those Sundays and I certainly wouldn’t go out to eat. The last thing I needed to see was all those lucky people honoring their moms in flower and gift laden restaurant booths. Just walking into a store and seeing all the cards and gifts with the signs like “Don’t forget Mom this year” or “Give Mom something she’ll love” would reduce me to tears right there in the card aisle.
And I’m not a pretty crier. I’m not one of those people whose nose gets pink and the tears make the eyes look bigger and brighter.
I’m a blotcher. If I start to cry, my skin starts to redden in blotches that could be perceived as some new and hideous disease or the beginning of leprosy. Either way, I frighten small children…and some adults. My nose doesn’t get pink… it turns a red so bright it could give Rudolph a run for his money and boy does it RUN! Gobs and gobs of snot begin to pour out of each nostril and my eyes swell and redden to the point someone could think I was bleeding out of each pupil!
It’s just not something a person wants to see in the Mother’s Day card section of Hallmark stores.
After I married Marty I had to rethink my aversion to celebrating the day. His mother was alive and well, and since I had known and loved her since I was 12 or 13, I absolutely wanted to celebrate her. So it was back to church and back to the Mother’s Day dinners until her passing in 2011. Then in 2012, my stepson’s mother also passed, so we became a house of motherless children. Mother’s Day was a sad occasion each year where we each basically found a spot to be alone and ignore the day. After a few years of that though, we decided enough was enough and being sad and remorseful was no way to honor the three amazing women who mothered us. So we once again began to celebrate and Mother’s Day returned to the happy occasion that it’s meant to be.
And the fact that as a stepmother and dog and cat mom, there were gifts in it for me didn’t hurt.
This year, however, Mother’s Day weekend was right after I was scheduled to have some pretty intense oral surgery. I have to have dental implants, and it’s a long and tedious process, but everyone says the end result will be worth it.
It’s the in between that’s killer. There were extractions, bone building of the gums, and a whole lot of slicing and dicing that left me raw and tender with a mouth full of stitches. And let me just say…my oral surgeon could rival “The Old Man and the Sea” with those “fisherman’s knots” he uses on his stitches.
I’m talking KNOTS here folks. BIG knots. Knots so big they rubbed my gums and there was noooo way I could have used that fake tooth thingie he gave me.
I think that was his plan.
He really didn’t want me to wear the fake tooth over the incisions so I’m thinking he purposely tied those big suckers with that in mind. When he called to check on me post-surgery he warned me again about not wearing the fake tooth.
“Now Julia, I want the gums to heal, so you just rest up this weekend…I know it’s Mother’s Day, but you just stay home and let your husband and son spoil you. You don’t need to be going out anywhere right now.”
Well gee…no kidding. He TOOK my TOOTH! There’s a big gaping hole where the tooth should be. WHERE would I GO???
I know it wasn’t the typical Mother’s Day, but after a brief teary pity party on Friday morning when the post-op drugs wore off, I began to see the beauty in “resting” all weekend. As my drug-addled brain began to perk up I began to realize “resting” meant lying in bed reading or watching movies. I wouldn’t have to worry about meals because I “needed my rest.” I couldn’t leave the house so my previous commitments had to be cancelled. I couldn’t grocery shop…it could lead to stress which could lead to bleeding gums. And we couldn’t have that, could we?
From Friday until Monday, I think I watched a good ten to 15 movies, two terrific series, and I finished a fantastic book. Saturday morning a beautiful bouquet of flowers showed up from my fellas and the fur babies, and on Sunday, my stepson came over bearing some nifty gifts and, as soon as I opened the last one, both he and my husband insisted I go back to bed to “get my rest.”
All in all…it wasn’t a bad Mother’s Day at all. I never get to lie around and watch TV and read…I’m thinking I may have to try this again next year…without the surgery though. Maybe just a bad cold would do it!
I’m just saying…
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