We have had a tumultuous last few weeks, with both birthdays, this thing they call “Mother’s Day” and Silas’ memorial coming up this Saturday. I had those expectations of a really terrible weekend. I spent Friday crying all day. Saturday I was ok–we sold coffee at Fairfield’s Earth Day and seeing all the cute babies being strolled around didn’t bring me to tears. I actually may have been cried out. See it worked!  Sunday I only had one major meltdown, but it was a necessary one and one that left me feeling a little lighter.

Our moms decided not to celebrate this year. This made it easier for us, there was no expectation of something we were most likely not capable of performing. Most people in my life were scared. I assume scared of saying or doing the wrong thing, so they just didn’t do anything at all. Some brave friends called and of course all of my family. I got some beautiful texts and emails, and one card from Sarah & one card from Aliza that were wonderful.

One note I wanted to excerpt here was from our friend Tina. She has faced this head on with us, from the very beginning. She has not been scared to email, chat, call or even visit, which she did about a month after Silas died, all the way from SF. This email below was another of the amazing gifts I received this weekend.

This year, it is with a heavy heart that I send out my annual mother’s day email.  I debated about whether I should even send it or not.  I debated about whether to send it to everyone except my friend Lani, but that just didn’t feel right either.  As some of you know, my friend Lani is a mother.  She just happened to lose her baby boy, Silas, 10 hours after he was born this past September.  We are all reminded at different points in our lives that life is so precious and sometimes tragic and certainly at times uncontrollable .  And this past year was one of those years for a lot of people, Lani being one of them.

The reason I think it’s important to continue to send this email out to all of you today is because to me, Lani is an example of exactly why it’s important to celebrate the strong, warm-hearted, vibrant, wise, silly and wonderful women in our lives.  Because even when life hands you something so unbelievable, like losing a baby, you continue moving forward.  You exhibit strength and courage and bravery in the face of grief and loss or illness, you still care about others well-being and happiness, even if inside you may feel a range of other not-so-pleasant emotions.  You  can still laugh and find humor and beauty even in the worst of situations.  We are all faced with great challenges in our lives,  I’m only guessing here but I’m sure that is especially true when raising children, and I know that every person on this email has the ability to handle and rise to those challenges (along with the many joys in life) with grace and love.

I wandered around our apt a bit lost. I started emptying the dishwasher and then had the thought “if Silas were here, I definitely would not be doing this.” I think Chris heard my thoughts because he came into the kitchen and told me to stop, and to relax with him on the couch. Unless this was something I wanted to be doing.

That was the problem. There was nothing I really wanted to be doing. So I didn’t know what to do. That was the moment I stopped and sobbed in his arms.  I looked around not knowing what I was “supposed” to do on a day like this day. All the other mothers were getting treated like queens by their children, husbands, other family members.

What about me? I get lost in the shuffle of all this. I also happen to have many friends who have lost their mothers at a young age, what about them? This is the biggest F-You holiday of them all. This post here says it all. Thanks Tash, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

On Saturday we ended up at a street festival after the Earth Day thing and I became the “bitter” Lani. This side of me doesn’t show itself very often. I was making Chris laugh so hard, it was great. We had Thai food from a vendor and shared the dish even though Chris claimed he was too depressed to eat.  We both gobbled it up and made a mess of the outdoor table as families with their babies strolled by.  I got up from the table and saw our messy scraps there and said to Chris, “I hope some mother has to clean it up!”  He started cracking up so hard.  But even still I couldn’t freaking help myself and cleaned up anyway.

I felt the need to diss mothers everywhere, it made me feel good and I was able to laugh (snidely of course) at the fact that I’m really not part of this club yet. A club I so desperately want to be in, yet somehow my membership was revoked just as it was being handed to me. So what better to do to a club that snubs you? Snub back, snide remarks, name calling, lots of f-you’s. It’s fun, you all should try it.