Mother's Day

It started out well. Alone on my porch, listening to the birds, a hot cup of coffee in hand. I love those times alone, the quiet, the birds and usually the cats nearby. Cheddar, our orange cat sat on my lap, considering the chill of the morning, he was a welcome guest. Teale staggered out first to find me. She knows my routine, if I'm not in bed, I'm on the porch. She asks about the day, trying to figure out what she has to do. I told her it was a Sunday, no school, Mother's Day. It was cold outside and she wasn't dressed for the chill. I had on my robe, a pair of warm boots and Mark's coat. I watched Teale shiver and told her to go look for her Dad, it was too cold outside for her. I told her, tell your Dad it's Mother's Day. Mother's Day, it's supposed to be a magical day where all children are angels and mental illness takes a vacation. As I sat there I thought back to the past Mother's Days. The bad came to mind faster than the good. I had to work to remember the good ones. The one when I was expecting our first child, the mystery of what I was carrying, came to mind first. Mark and I never found out the sex of our babies in utero. I had just started to show about Mother's Day. Church friends would notice and I felt special. Mark and I were expecting our first baby on our sixth Wedding Anniversary in August. The baby bump had popped and I proudly showed it off. Then there was the year we were expecting our second child. We had our son, Beau, tell his grandmother during the passing of the peace at church that he would be a big brother in January. Little did we know at that time the issues that would arise in this pregnancy. We had no clue how much that baby would change us. So as Teale went inside to wake her Dad, I sat there thinking about our life together and the amazing journey we have been on. The rough times have been many, but we have stayed true to each other, growing in depth of our love. Teale had changed the journey, made it more of a challenge, but we had been able to grow and learn, not lay down and die. Mark and I have adapted, we have changed, we had to. Mother's Day memories continue to fill my head and I pray today's will be peaceful. We've had many holidays where peace could not be found. Days we had divided and concurred, knowing it was the only way to salvage some of the day. This year would be like that, Teale would be edgy, her mental illness would not take a vacation so that I could bask in the glow of my family. She would argue, be ok, then be angry and unsettled more. She would bait us into making her angry and seemingly want to pick fights all day. We wouldn't even eat dinner in the same room or at the same time because Teale was controling us. Mark would leave many times with her to give the rest of us some peace, but when we all came back together in the house, her intensity came back too. Seven PM couldn't come fast enough, we could put her to bed, stopping her pain and ours. Something was off, her body was fighting her, her rages were uncomfortable for us, but I suspect more so for her. It's morning the day after Mother's Day. I went to bed early last night to escape my pain. Today is a new day and I'm hopeful Teale is rested and her mental illness is more at ease today. I live on hope, I have to.