With every anniversary, birthday, Christmas, Easter all special days, the hurt and pain of being estranged from our children or grandchildren is unbearable. It doesn’t mean to say that the hurt is any less on other days but the feelings are heightened on these special days.
We are about to face just one of these days.
Mothering Sunday.
I have deliberately used the original name not the commercialised name.
Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent. Although it’s often called Mothers’ Day it has no connection with the American festival of that name. Traditionally, it was a day when children, mainly daughters, who had gone to work as domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother and family.
History of Mother’s Day.
Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honour of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”
Often Mothering Sunday is celebrated in local churches by the children giving little posies of flowers to all the Mums in church.
Just simple acts of recognition.
Of course that wonderful picture that we conjure up in our heads, is not true for everyone.
Sadly in thousands of homes it is a day of enormous sadness and grief.
There will be Mums who are apart from their children due to estrangement and alienation and their hearts will be broken, they don’t want flowers, chocolates and cards, they just want to be able to hold their precious children.
At the other end of the spectrum there will be Mums of adult children who will be feeling broken as well.
They carried and gave birth to these children, they nurtured them and taught them right from wrong. They brought them up to be caring, compassionate people but as adults these children have made the decision to cut their Mums out of their lives. Only they know why they find it necessary to condemn their Mums to so much hurt.
Some of the adult children will be receiving gifts, hand made cards with squiggly writing from their own children, I wonder how they will feel if their children decide to estrange themselves when they are older?
I have said so many times before, that being a parent is the hardest job in the world, and without exception we all make mistakes, but to withdraw themselves and their children from their Mum is the cruelest of things.
Maybe this Mothering Sunday it is time to say the hardest word of all.
Sorry.
Every problem and disagreement can be sorted out, but only if we are prepared to communicate with one another, and maybe admit we may have said or done something in the past. Even if we believe we have done nothing wrong, we need a brand new clean slate to work through our differences, but it takes both sides to come together, to say sorry to one another for any hurt that has been caused.
Of course sometimes the hurt is so deep that even saying sorry will not help, often I hear “I will never forgive my son or daughter for this,” and of course forgiveness is never easy, but without it there can be no way forward.
For all you Mums out there, you may not be getting flowers ect, but take strength from the fact that, you did your best, you brought your children up in the best way you knew how.
For the Mums who wont be spending time with your little people remember, you are their Mum, you always will be, your blood rushes around their veins, no-one can ever take that away, they are part of you and you are part of them.
