No other day has evolved in meaning quite as much as Mother’s Day.
When I was little, it was simple. It meant trying to wake up before my mom, an impossible task most days, so we could surprise her with breakfast in bed. We’d stumble haphazardly around the kitchen, cracking eggs with questionable aim, over-toasting the toast, squeezing oranges that yielded barely a sip - then giving up and pouring the Tropicana. It was clumsy and love wrapped in good intentions and precarious tray-carrying. I’d make a card with predictably pink construction paper and glue sticks, lumpy hearts and a stick-figure family, and she’d act like it was a masterpiece.
We knew her favorites: bath salts (‘bath bombs’ were a big thing then), floral stationery, and most successfully, Chanel No. 5 — her signature. If you knew her, you remember that scent. She was the kind of woman who entered a room twice: once with her laughter, and once with that unmistakable perfume. Both announced her arrival before you even turned around. She was magnetic, generous, radiant in a way that pulled people in. Everyone loved her. You would have, too.
And then — she was gone.
There was no warning. No slow fade, no time to brace, no long goodbye. Just here, and then not. And from that moment on, Mother’s Day became something entirely different. It turned from celebration to countdown - a slow, aching approach toward a day I dreaded. The commercials, the cards, the brunch menus, the bright-pink everything. The world seemed to scream mother, mother, mother, and I wanted to scream back: And mine is gone!
I felt like an outsider in my own life. While others posted photos of Sunday mimosas with their moms, I sat swallowed by grief and rageful envy. The resentment felt ugly and raw. Did they even know what they had?
For years, I white-knuckled my way through the day. Avoided social media. Avoided people, honestly. I didn’t know how to be in a world that celebrated what I had lost.
But grief is a strange creature. It never really leaves you, but over time, it shifts. It reshapes itself. It stretches into new forms. Eventually, I began to notice a kind of softening - not a diminishing of love or sadness, but a change in texture. I found ways to stay in connection with her, even without her physically here.
And along the way, I also came to understand something I didn’t fully grasp when I was younger: that I was lucky. I had a good mom - not a perfect one, but a loving, steady presence. That’s not everyone’s story. For many, the word mother carries complexity, distance, hurt, or absence. And so even as I grieved, I tried to hold that awareness, too - that this day can be hard for so many different reasons, not just loss. Not everyone is mourning a mother they adored. Some are mourning the mother they never had, or the relationship they wished was possible.
For me, in missing her, I looked for ways to stay close. And one of those ways came from her. When I was five and she lost her mother, she invited me into a ritual - one I’d later return to when it was my turn to grieve. We’d write letters to her mom, tuck them into red balloons, and send them skyward. I was certain then that God was a postman, faithfully delivering Balloon Mail to everyone in heaven.
After she passed, I held a Balloon Ceremony of my own. Friends came over, each writing a letter to someone they’d lost, and we released them together over the Hudson River. And on many Mother’s Days, you’d find me with a pen in hand, sitting beside a Party City helium tank.
Now, she visits me in the form of a red balloon. I’ll be walking along, mid-thought, mid-heartache, and there it is — a single red balloon in the sky, or caught in a tree, or drifting through a park where no child seems to have lost it. And I know: that’s her. That’s how she says hi.
As I move deeper into adulthood, Mother’s Day continues to take on new shapes. It reflects the tender, complicated questions moving through my circle: Do I want to be a mother? Can I be?
I watch people I love navigate fertility treatments and heartbreak, hope and hesitation, hard-won clarity and lingering uncertainty. Some say yes—with joy, with mess, with open arms. Some say no, and that no is full, not empty. It's rooted, chosen, powerful.
Others are in the in-between: freezing eggs, freezing time, carving out space in a world that rushes decisions. And some become mothers without planning to, while others step in with intention—single mothers by choice, building families on their own terms.
It’s not always about deciding. Sometimes it’s about becoming, or accepting. Sometimes the answer doesn’t come, or doesn’t come true.
These days, I find myself in a different place still. I am not a mother in the traditional sense. I’m not raising a child. But I am, most definitely, mothering. I have a dog - the furry extension of my aorta - and he has taught me more about care and presence and unconditional love than I ever expected. He is not a substitute for a child. He is not less-than. He is his own kind of soul, and my partner Kevin and I are his people. I mother him — fiercely, fully, and totally absurdly.
His face is on a hat, on multiple mugs, and embroidered onto pajamas (thank you, Jaycee!). Every time I put my hand in a pocket, there’s at least one piece of kibble. I know exactly which square foot of floor he’ll settle on when the sun begins to set. I talk to him in nauseatingly high-pitched voices and shape my days around our rituals. And when the world feels sharp and unkind, he climbs into my lap or onto my chest and reminds me that love doesn’t always come in the package we imagined—but it comes, if we let it.
So this Mother’s Day, I hold space for all of it. For the child I was, waking early with a handmade card. For the woman I am, sending letters to the sky - still. For the friends becoming, deciding, grieving, transforming. For the mothers of humans. For the ones who wanted to be. For the ones who chose not to be. And yes — for the dog moms, too.
Because care is care. Devotion is devotion. Love is love.
In that spirit, I wrote this.
A Blessing for the Dog Mom
She wakes each day to breath upon her face,
A pup that claims her bed, her time, her space.
No need for clocks — the day begins with paws,
Announcing life with licks and noble cause.She’s watched him grow from trembling, clumsy start,
From wee pad mess to knowing when to part.
She swore he’d sleep in crates, all neat and penned,
But Night One came — and rules met their soft end.There’s kibble crumbling in her coat’s deep seams,
Her car is lined with fur and squeaky dreams.
She keeps some treats in every purse she owns,
And talks in high pitched, dog-conversing tones.She’s washed the bowls and fetched the brand-new toy,
She knows which bark means panic, which means joy.
She’s Googled “is this normal?” every week,
And cleaned up things she’d rather not critique.Still, none of it feels wasted or too much,
When he lies down and quiets her with touch.
This weighted blanket’s better, she insists,
Than couches, sessions, or prescribed assists.A canceled night? A quiet, secret win -
Just her and him, and takeout, curled within.
The night is theirs - no show, no social pace,
Just simple love stretched out in shared, small space.So let this day belong to her as well,
The one whose love no language needs to tell.
She mothers — wholly, fiercely, heart and bone,
That furry child she proudly calls her own.
So wherever this day finds you — in celebration, in sorrow, in contemplation, or in something unnameable — I hope you can be easy with you in it.
Mother's Day carries so many layers, and it rarely fits neatly into the pastel-colored boxes we see in store windows. Maybe you're missing someone today. Maybe you're holding the quiet grief of a relationship that never felt whole. Maybe you're navigating the uncertainty of whether motherhood is meant for you, or sitting with the ache of wanting it and not having it. Maybe you're a mother in the most traditional sense, exhausted and adored. Maybe you’re mothering in a way the world doesn’t always recognize — as a teacher, an aunt, a friend, a caregiver, a dog mom, someone who shows up and tends to life in all its forms.
However it looks, whatever your story is, I see you, Friend. I honor the complexity of what it means to care, to nurture, to love from that deep place. You don't need a title or a holiday to validate that. But if this day brings up anything at all - joy, grief, resistance, longing - I hope you’ll let it. You’re not alone in it. And if you feel like sharing, I’d be honored to hear how your relationship to this day has shifted or grown or surprised you over time. I’ll be reading, with an open heart.
With love always and in all ways,
Nat
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