The month of May has always been an ego booster for most of us mothers, as we receive cards of praise and flattery from our children. But now, our child has died, and we are walking around with a hole in our soul. Those same greeting cards can cause us guilt by making us not feel worthy of the words.

    We must always redefine our priorities, and make new standards for ourselves after the death. One of those priorities is don't put off time spent together and expressing our love, and with our hindsight of knowing the child's life was cut short, we critique our motherhood as though we could have been superhuman. We measure our mothering performance as though we could have given 100% of our time to our precious child. We punish ourselves with guilt by remembering the specifics of harsh words or deeds. Most often these are very normal things most parents do and say. We know we can not change, or take back, any infliction we place upon our child.

    When we were entrusted with the gift of our children, we were not given hindsight nor the ability to be perfect. We were expected to handle all the other responsibilities placed upon us by other family members, and many mothers dealt with jobs to provide financial support for the family. This means there was not time, nor energy, to be the perfect parent. We were even expected to make mistakes, but now guilt holds us responsible for all our parental shortcomings. I have learned if we did what we thought was right at the time, or the best we could, that was all we could do. It is unfair to measure our performance as a parent with hindsight or superhuman powers that we did not possess. I'm sure our children did not judge us nearly so harshly as we judge ourselves. You may find it very helpful to tell your deceased child how you feel, what you wish you could have done, and how much you love them. I, personally, feel they are in an all-knowing state, and can better understand our expression of love. I'm sure a lot of our guilt would subside, if our children could express their image of us as parents.

    Love is the greatest gift we have ever given or received. Just the fact that we hurt so badly, and our pain is so intense, tells us we have great love for our children.     The pain of losing our children can never stop totally, but we can help to ease it to the point we can live with it. We would be very angry if someone would judge us, as unfairly as we judge ourselves. We must first learn to love ourselves again, so we can love others. We love our children, even with their flaws. We must respect our children enough to know they love us, even when we are not the perfect parent. Don't minimize their love by thinking they were not capable of forgiving or understanding that we did our best, and that was good enough.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!