I loathe Mother's Day!

I do. Loathe it. Especially the year my ex-husband bought me a toaster oven for Mother's Day! I made him take it back. I looked a gift horse in the mouth.

I know my adult children love me.

The kids are all busy with their children, in-laws, outlaws, or other activities. It isn't a day for grandmothers. They show me in other ways all year round. Most of them do their best to phone me. But with extended families it is difficult.

Little kids are busy having fun with their moms, they don't have time for us older moms. This is the time a young mother should be made to feel special, not us old farts.

It's a hard day for anyone, young or old, who doesn't have a mother. It's a hard day for a woman who hasn't been able to have had kids.

I am fed up with every Tom, Dick and Harry, and their marketing twits, deciding that sending me an e-mail, suggesting I give my late mother a subscription to People magazine, or make a donation to Kiva, on her behalf would be a good way to 'think of mom'.

This isn't what Mother's Day is about. This is a tragic marketing ploy, and one best stopped. This tactic is lose-lose.

Even worse, giving a donation in your mother's name, so YOU get a tax receipt, which isn't the spirit of Mother's Day.

This is a good day to remember our mothers who have passed. Unfortunately, for me, my mother passed the day before Mother's Day, and I don't like to mourn my mother on the day of her death.
I celebrate her life on the date of her birth.

Let's just make it 'myself' day!

This is a difficult reminder for me. Much like those roadside memorials that blot the landscape along the side of the roads. We don't need reminders that YOUR son or daughter died roadside. Keep your grief to yourself, I bring out mine when I am able to deal with it. The tourists don't need it. Those driving on their way to work every morning don't want to see it, either. Find yourself a private, quiet, beautiful place, and celebrate their lives.