Celebrate all Women on Mother's Day.- not just mothers. Just wish all women a beautiful day.

Hi Folks, getting ready to  FINALLY  OPEN APPROXIMATELY THE 4TH WEEK OF MAY-YEAH!!!! This has been a difficult process and I have experienced 5 deaths in my family the past 10 months, two of them being both my parents.--OUCH!!!

This mother's day will be particlarly painful for me as my mother just passed away 4 weeks ago. Our relationship was loving but complicated and difficult. 

As a child, I remember making cards and breakfast for my mom who raised three daughters by herself. All 3 of us girls tried to make it special and we would always have my grandparents over for dinner and pamper my grandma with kisses, cards & a new sweater or robe each year.  As a younger woman, I loved going to brunch with my mother & grandmother to celebrate this day of honoring our matriarch's . After all, they gave us life & sacrificed much of themselves for the benefit of their children.

In my late 20's when  I became an OB/GYN Nurse Practitioner, I was fortunate to be part of many women & families' journey's as they prepared for a new life and family member to enter the world. Listening to doppler amplified fetal heart tones with the expectant mother & family was special & I felt priveldged to be an integral part of that family & fetus' journey to life outside the womb. When I married in my late 30's to become pregnant, we needed to resort to reproductive endocrinology/fertility care which was arduous, expense, emotionally difficult & ultimely one of the reason's that lead to the end of my marriage.  I would often take care of an OB patient & then go into the bathroom & cry & gather my composure before I went onto my next patient. I felt like my body was deceiving me; I had a regular, problem free periods all those years  & there I was, this healthy NP in women's health, that had to endure many IVF's & other procedured which ultimately did not work. 

I remember in particular, the pain I felt  on  many mother's days when people assumed that I was a mother, even if I was alone and innocently wished me "a happy mother's day". It was like someone stuck a knife into my heart. It's taken many years to get past this & be able to just shrug it off. 

I share this as mother's day approaches to remind us all that while we might have the best of intentions, it would be helpful if we were all mindful that making assumptions based on appearnace  or not, or making infereneces based on company one keeps etc, that offering those innocent  wishes to someone could be potentially painful or harmful. What if we just all wished one another  "a beautiful day, or brunch,  or asked, who they were celebrating that day". Providing this extra emotional & verbal space & consideration before we offer up a usual  reflexed "happy mothers day greeting" , might just spare lots of heart aches for those childess people that would love to be parents. I myself now tell folks I'm a fur baby mommy of 5 cats and a dog. Mostly, the sting of a nonchalant , innocent mother's day greeting is gone, however it still occasionally stings & I imagine this year, my first without my mom, will definiely bite and be without any honey...

Hope to see many of you soon. Come check us out. Wishing blessings to all !!!!