Mother’s Day can be a double edged sword for many, including myself. This year I chose not to write a Mother’s Day post on Mother’s Day and instead decided to concentrate on enjoying my own day as a mother instead of thinking about being a motherless daughter and motherless mother.

Throughout the day I noticed many accolades for mothers near and far and even more for those no longer with us, both on Facebook and Twitter. I learned that many, many women have “lost” their mothers through one definition or another and that they think about them and remember them, not just on Mother’s Day but every single day.

I also learned that loss is loss and it shouldn’t be a competition. Just like pain is pain. To be fair, I didn’t just learn this although it has become more and more apparent to me as time goes on. And while some of us literally grew up without mothers and others believe they may have been better off without the mothers they were dealt, one thing was obvious. Most loved their mothers unconditionally, in spite of so much, and others had loved them enough (and often to no avail) to hate them. Okay, maybe not to hate them but one gracious, honest and poignant writer that I admire shared a beautiful tribute on Facebook to the “mothers” in her life while stating that she does not love her mother. It was honest and to me, not shocking or contrived or self pitying. No, it is how she feels, straight up and in my opinion (which doesn’t really matter), a better option than hate as hate just requires so much effort and energy and eventually eats up the very being of the hater (trust me).

I don’t mourn the loss of my mother on Mother’s Day. I mourn the loss of her every single day. I never really knew her. I know that she was a beautiful and pleasing child that played piano and loved to ride her bike. I learned that as a teenager she was all about fashion and boys. She was tall, with soulful almond shaped brown eyes that always told a story. I knew that she was beautiful and liked expensive hairspray. She fell in love with her high school sweetheart, my dad and they had me. I knew they were both too young and the odds were stacked against them. These are just a few things I knew about my beautiful mother who’s life became complicated and eventually, her soul life crushingly tormented beyond repair.

And I will always love her forever and ever.