In the week leading up to Mother’s Day, I noticed so many blog posts and articles about the holiday. Articles that attempted to communicate some aspect of mothering. Or lack of mothering. Articles on how messy motherhood is, how no one is a perfect mother, how someone’s mama actually was a perfect mother, how painful Mother’s Day is to some women for a variety of reasons, how we need to focus on this or that, how we need to have grace for ourselves as mothers, how we need to reach out to those without mothers, how we need to consider women who want to be mothers, how we should celebrate the mothers we have, what we do with stepmothers and mothers-in-law, how we should respond to a disappointing Mother’s Day. And this is just a taste of what I saw out there in the blogosphere.

It wasn’t long after my mother died that I was shopping in a sweet little boutique in May. A salesperson approached me and asked if I needed any help. No, thank you, I replied. I was just browsing.

A couple of minutes later, she came back and commented on the item I was looking at. That is a perfect Mother’s Day Gift!

I smiled in acknowledgment and turned back to my shopping. I reminded myself that she didn’t know Mamma had died, and I told myself not to let it ruin my day.