Unhappy Mother's Day?

It's coming. One day until my first Mother's Day without my mom. If your mother died more than a year ago - do you remember the first one?

As a mother of two girls, ages 11 and 7, I am finding it especially challenging. I can't just retreat and spend the day in bed or brunch with friends who are not spending Sunday with their moms. I am going to be cherished and celebrated, when honestly, the last thing in the world I want to do is celebrate or be cherished, especially when I feel like I've been a shit mom for at least 50% of the last eleven weeks since my mom died.

When what would have been my mom's 74th birthday one month and one day after she died, I was extremely depressed. I was sad. It wasn't really able to motivate to get off the sofa all day. I did bake an Angel Food Cake with Chocolate Frosting, which was one of my favorite cake she made. And in the days following her birthday I felt like I missed an opportunity to celebrate and honor her. So I've been trying to think of ways to not miss this opportunity. This morning I woke the girls up early and took them downtown to the Los Angeles Flower Mart and bought my mom's favorite flowers and filled the house with the beautiful blooms - their color and scent. Then for Sunday morning, I've asked my husband and the girls to make what was one of my mom's best breakfast dishes a Dutch Baby, a simple pancake of butter, eggs, milk and flour, but when baked in my Grammy Bird's enameled cast iron paella pan, it becomes the most dramatic puffed pancake ever!

Celebrate and cherish.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, her first in her new afterlife, and to me, in mine.