Editor’s note: This post gets a lot of traffic from people searching phrases like “mothers day wishes for someone who lost their mom.” I love that so many of you are looking to offer your love and support, and would personally suggest following your heart with something simple like “Thinking of you and your mom today,” or “Are you doing anything to celebrate your mother today? Would you like some company?”
Please, avoid telling that person who’s lost her mother how it’s for the best, that God has a plan and your mother is in a better place. No matter how much you believe that’s true, if I’m missing my mom, the main thing on my mind and in my heart is missing her. I don’t want to hear how great it is that I’m hurting. Just my two cents.
My old colleagues at the University of Michigan News Service issued a press release this week timed to Mother’s Day. It reports on the findings of two researchers at the U-M Retirement Research Center:

Most Americans live within 25 miles of their mothers, according to a report issued by the University of Michigan Retirement Research Center.
The study calls into question a widespread belief that when children grow up, they’re likely to move far away and not be on hand to help out when their mothers get older.

It’s just another reason why the Mother’s Day season is miserable.
I lost my mom to cancer in 2001. Though the grief has eased from a sharp, searing pain to a dull ache, every florist ad urging me to send my mom a bouquet to tell her how much I love her rubs salt in the wound.
I would love to take part in the corny, commercial celebration of mothers but I can’t. I wish I could contemplate whether I’ll live too far away to be helpful when she gets older.
John’s mother died before he and I started dating so I never even had the chance to meet her. My stepmom died a few years after my mom did. John’s stepmother died at the end of last year. We’ve truly mourned the loss of four mothers between us and don’t have a single one left.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5WhawsF4Uk]
Richie Havens sings a beautiful song that includes the line “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.”
If you have someone in your life whose mother has died, consider reaching out to him or her this weekend to offer a quick distraction from those sappy TV ads.
Related posts:

• On making peace with my mom before she died, posted on the eight-year anniversary of her death
• Guest blogger Lisa Gauchey on how her mother’s death changed her life for the best

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