Thinking of you, sweet mama

Mama, I’m thinking of you today

I’m thinking about how today is supposed to be one for celebration, and maybe it is and you are, or maybe you sit

Exhausted

Lonely

Sad

Maybe you’re exhausted because your sweet baby won’t sleep through the night

Or exhausted because you can’t stop dreaming of the one you lost

Or the one you have begged for but has never come

Maybe you’re lonely because young kids are your only daily company

Or lonely because your grief makes it too hard to leave the house

Or because the emptiness of your arms weighs too heavy

Maybe you’re sad because days are sometimes too long but the years are short and you worry you’re not as present as you ought to be

Or you’re sad because you see pictures of mamas and their babies and feel guilty at the anger those images cause

Or because today is a reminder of who you know you should be, really, who you are, but it hasn’t happened for you and maybe never will and you can’t understand why

And maybe today IS full of joy for you

You feel loved and grateful and celebrated

Maybe motherhood has always been full of all good things for you

You feel supported, never overly tired, never at the end of your rope

You’ve never struggled to become a mama in the first place, or

You’ve never became a mama and then got slammed with the sudden loss of that privilege

But, knowing the people and the stories and statistics that I do, maybe today isn’t full of joy and maybe it’s actually a day full of dread, where you spend your waking moments doing everything you can to stay distracted

Maybe it’s not really devastating, per say, but you feel overlooked and you didn’t get any special acknowledgment from your partner or your family and really, you desperately need a break

Maybe it’s a reminder of all you want and don’t have, or all you had that was stolen from you in an instant

Whatever it is or it isn’t, I have nothing much to offer, really

Just that, whether you’re a mama with her hands full, or a mama with grown children and an empty nest, or a mama who had and lost, or a mama in heart but never in practice

Today I acknowledge you

I’m thinking of you

I see you

I honor you