What better time is there than Mother’s Day to appreciate our mother’s? The truth is, I appreciate her every day, especially now that she is no longer here. On some level I took my mother for granted, her smile, her frown, the fact that she’d always be around to accept my calls, to hear my successes and my complaints.

I don’t feel badly about that, just that I wasn’t cognizant enough, that the day might arrive when I wouldn’t have her. As Joni Mitchell once said: “We don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.” But how can we have the comforting luxury of taking someone for granted, carrying the awareness that they will someday not be here?

My mother was a massive influence in my life, and the lives of my children. Her presence was large, looming, loving, and critical. You knew where you stood with Mom, she did not have, nor did she want to have, a poker face. She was straight up, flat out, who she was. For better or for worse.

I miss her, but I also carry her within me – I hear her words and feel her presence, although the sensations have faded. She’s been gone for five years now – I feel healed, but I shall always hold a space, many spaces actually, for her. And that feels right.

My book and tribute, The Moon To Play With – A Daughter’s Journey Through Love, Loss, & the Power of Presence is now out and available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This memoir represents the culmination of a vivid eighteen month period that changed the way I live my life. We are lucky when we have the opportunity to lose and care deeply, because it means we have loved just as deeply.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who gave and sustained life and continue to do so. And Happy Mother’s Day to all who act in the role of mothers – who provide an important service, usually without pay – unless we count the smiles on the faces of children, and the healthy adults these children become because of our care.

“You make the world a better place by making yourself a better person.”

  Amazon Link:      http://tinyurl.com/o7qz9qw

Please take a moment to Like my author Facebook page (thank you to those who already have) and take a moment to consider what this book can mean for you.

“The time you spend with a person at the end of their life, can change the way you live the rest of yours.” – Wendy Karasin