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Monday, May 15, 2023

#MicroblogMondays: Post-Voldemort Day odds & ends

  • BIL called dh late Saturday night:  Older Nephew had invited them to come there on Sunday (MDay/Voldemort Day) and he (BIL -- not Older Nephew) wanted to know if we wanted to come too.  
    • Dh declined:  I'd already committed to co-hosting two hours of an all-day ongoing text chat on the private Lighthouse Women (formerly Gateway Women) community, late Sunday afternoon. (Dh told him I was on a Zoom call for one of my book clubs... close enough, I guess!  lol)  
    • Even if I wasn't already committed, I'm not sure I would have wanted to go.  I generally like to spend the day quietly with dh, just the two of us. Older Nephew didn't invite us directly, after all (BIL often issues these invitations of his own accord, without consulting the people he's visiting...!) -- and I thought SIL deserved to be able to spend MDay with her son & grandson, without having us hanging around (as we often are...!). 
    • (I did wonder if BIL was hoping dh would drive, as he often does...!).  
  • I was feeling a little more inclined to mope than usual this year, but the day turned out better than I had anticipated. I spent most of it online, chatting with various online friends from the childless/infertility/loss communities (which always buoys me up), and the day (thankfully) flew by.  The weather was slightly overcast, but pleasant, enough so that we had the balcony door open most of the day (NO humidity!!)(yet...!).  Dh gave me a card, made brunch and cooked dinner. 
    • And yes, I remembered to call MY mom!  lol  
  • Why I was inclined to mope:  I couldn't help remembering that 25 years ago, Mother's Day for me was one of happiness, hope, excitement and expectation:  as I wrote in this 2008 post, I was in the first trimester of what would be my one & only pregnancy, and looking forward to Mother's Day 1999, when there would be three of us to celebrate together. 
    • It was not to be. But I still have the Boyds Bears figurine dh gave me that year (which I wrote about here), sitting on my bedside night table.  (I don't remember when I stopped doing it, but I no longer rub its belly for luck, as I did when I was still hoping for another baby.)  
  • Seen on social media this weekend, from the mother of two grown sons:  "I always wonder if organizers of Mother/Daughter teas for Mother’s Day weekend realize they are leaving out us boy moms." (!!!!!!) (She's a nice person, but seriously??!)  
    • She got lots of sympathy in the comments, too. 
  • From Yael Wolfe on Medium:  "Honoring the Childless Women Who Feel Invisible Today." 
  • Writer Anne Lamott -- who is a mother -- posted her annual diatribe about Mother's Day on Facebook this weekend. Well worth a read! 
  • From The Atlantic by Kelly McMasters (also a mother):  "Why I’m Skipping Mother’s Day:  Should people feel compelled to celebrate a holiday that is painful for so many?
  • Megan Pillow guests on Lyz Lenz's Substack newsletter ("Men Yell at Me") with "A Single Mom’s Manifesto for Mother’s Day." If you can get past the mom stuff, there's some interesting history there about Mother's Day's origins and how its original intent has been perverted. 
  • Heather Cox Richardson writes mostly about American politics & current events from a historical perspective on her Substack newsletter ("Letters From an American" -- and I highly recommend it!) -- but her Saturday night/Sunday morning newsletter was about Mother's Day and a non-mother who played a significant role in her life. I loved it!  
  • Anne Helen Petersen has been taking a break this past week from her Culture Study newsletter on Substack, following the loss of her beloved dog, Peggy.  She was back yesterday with a post about grief, titled... "This is Not Just a Post About Dog Grief."  Excerpt:  
I think most people understand this feeling when it comes to close family, and a lot of people understand it when it comes to animals. But we have such a limited understanding of who and what is worth grieving, who and what deserves time...  

There’s a refrain Americans often bandy about as a sort of explanation for the emotional constipation that structures the national character. We’re so bad at grieving, people say, when the “we” in question is really white Christians or Christian-adjacent, steeped in the Protestant Work Ethic that demands the sublimation of grief to productivity. When growth is always God, there is no space to breathe, to break in half, to take the time that’s actually necessary to find some semblance of self amidst the wreckage.

It’s not normal, or ironic, or even slightly funny that we’re this bad at making space to process loss and suffering. It’s fucked up, and I’m increasingly convinced it’s at the heart of our national regression. Around Covid, of course, but also around mass gun violence, and addiction, and eldercare. We have so little language to describe the onset of grief in our lives, and so little expectation of accommodation for it. We don’t know how to be still in our sadness. And if you won’t allow yourself that grace, it’s so difficult to authentically extend it to others.

Whether you realize it or not: you have allowed me that space. I knew you wouldn’t unsubscribe en masse, which meant you effectively gave me bereavement leave. I allowed my sadness to expand and envelop my days. I went on long walks with Steve and felt Peggy’s presence over and over and over and watched it turn to joy, to utter gratitude.

I’m not nearly done with this grief but I also know that its foundation has been laid. What a gift you have given me — and what renewed conviction I have that this right to grieve should be universal.

How was your day yesterday? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here

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