Happy Mother’s Day, y'all! This is a throwback to Mother’s Day 2012, and if your relationship with your mom is prickly, it might help!

Yesterday was the first Mother’s Day that I’ve spent without my mom–it wasn’t terrible. My sweet children made or gave me thoughtful presents that warmed my heart, but I couldn’t stop thinking about last Mother’s Day.

Last year, I dreaded another Mother’s Day with my mom, buying her presents and pretending that we were close when all I felt was resentment. Resentment is a funny thing. You think it’s about the other person, when all the while it’s a window into dissatisfaction with yourself.

I resented my mom for leaving me so much when I was young (as it was just the two of us) and then expecting me to be there for her when she was too frail to go-go anymore. It seemed like such a raw deal for me…so unfair.

I’m not saying that my mom was right for leaving me with strangers to pursue her own adventures, but I’m not saying I was right to resent her for it, either. All that resentment maintained a certain distance between us when we could have been close, as she was finally still for the first time in ninety years.

But instead of spending time with her, all I wanted to do was check the box on my TODO list: buy Mom a present, check. Take her to brunch, check. Say ”I love you”, check, and then get while the getting was good. That is not my idea of a great Mother’s Day for either my mom or myself. But that’s what resentment buys you.

So this year, I visited my mom’s headstone instead of her house, and I did it willingly, without resentment. Because for six weeks last summer, I stopped resenting my mother and started loving her for as long as she had days left for me to do so.

I realized that the resentment was about me and all the areas where I had neglected myself—like subjecting my body to years of brutal diets and exercise while ignoring my need for spiritual and creative sustenance. I'd shoved countless calories of crappy food on top of unfelt feelings, hoping to numb the pain. I’d spent a small fortune on shoes or toys, looking for happiness that could only come from self-care. I had neglected myself in a way far more damaging than my mom ever did.

And even though she was neglectful of me, it wasn’t intentional, unlike my punishing regimen of self-doubt and criticism.

As I reflect on a Mother’s Day without a mother, I see a day filled with love from my children and husband; a day of grief for all the lost moments with my mom, when my resentment and pride erected a barrier between us; and a day of gratitude for the love-filled six weeks we had together as she slowly succumbed to a disease she could not outrun.

If you are mad at anyone because of their treatment of you, and you’re carrying resentment around like a leaden backpack, I implore you to look at that resentment very closely. Ask yourself whether the actions that you resent in the other person are not reflected in your own life.

Then forgive them, and when you’ve done that, forgive yourself! Begin today to live a life free of resentment, and then take all the energy you’ve emancipated and do something nice for yourself. And then do something nice for your Mom…today, while you have the chance!

XO
Terri

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