God gave me entire bouquet for Mother’s Day. And how, when I finally was at home, I wept in humbled gratitude as I trimmed and placed those sacred flowers in a temple white vase. I think I said thank you, I can’t remember.Īll I remember was the overwhelming embrace of the spirit, saying, nay- shouting! Shouting loud enough for even my sepulchre-sealed heart to hear, YOU ARE SEEN. Before I could decline, he handed me a bouquet of all the remaining flowers, counting nearly twenty, in pristine condition. “I noticed you didn’t get a flower today,” he said. We finished, and as I waved goodbye, the second counsellor in the bishopric called me over.
And, as was usual for me at that time, I cured myself of the stiffness of three hours of sitting by joining a few friends to stack and store cultural hall chairs. I sighed a breath of relief at the end of the services that Sunday. Like years before, I politely said, “No, thank you,” when the lonely prize of a single carnation tried to be awarded to me as I entered the not-approved-for-weddings church chapel. Thus, one Mother’s Day, I reminded myself that I primarily attend church to partake of the sacrament. The faux combination of “every women is a mother,” did not suit my thickening skin. So much that after I moved into my own apartment (my first sans roommates, and before the imprint of cell phones marked everyone’s hands), I did not give her my phone number- just to see if she would notice how little she called me.Īs an “older than most,” yet still Young Single Adult, I dreaded Mother’s Day during this time. Year after year during my seemingly endless singlehood, her interest in my career waned, and we had little to talk about. As the eldest of four daughters who was yet unmarried, and therefore childless, my mother focused more and more on grandmothering my siblings’ children for Mother’s Day. As the years passed, and I became more independent, I preformed and annual, if perfunctory “Happy Mother’s Day call to my mother, who seemed less and less interested in my good wishes for her. Blessed with a strong will, I especially did not like being told what to do with my body, even if it was something as awesome as having a baby, one day.Īs years passed, and I went away to school, I did not feel any more comfortable with the day. Amid the admonitions and threatened cursings involving the law of chastity, heightened by self-defence classes, I learned that my body was a battleground in church, as much as it is outside of church. I felt uncomfortable with the maternal projection that felt much more like obligation in my forming teenage mind. I suspect my battle scars are too deep to wholly heal without the balm of Christ– and I also worry that in the healing, I will forget the beauty of my most memorable Mother’s Day.Įven as a Young Woman, I began to loathe Mother’s Day. In consideration of how my life has changed since being a mother, I still have not found peace in Mother’s Day. Finally having children after a bloody battle with infertility, I actually find joy in the day– because sincerely, nothing is better than hand-made cards and well-wishing voices that forget the complexity of childhood just to wish me a happy day. And if I am being honest, I mostly don’t like it.