Spring Rites

Mother's Day and graduation ceremonies are all colluding this year to kill me. Or at least that's what it feels like.

But first...

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...Mamas, I rejoice with you as you celebrate and share the accomplishments of your children. You are so, so, SO very proud of them, and damn well you should be. You worked hard, prayed hard, cried hard, and loved hard to help shepherd them to reach their goals.

Ya done good, Ma. 

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I submitted one of my final projects tonight. With finals next week, I'm this close to finishing the semester, and unless I flub it completely, I think I will be able to maintain my 4.0 GPA for awhile longer.

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But there's this heaviness, a weighty oppression that sucks the oxygen out of the room, that reminds me while I'm studying and while I'm not that none of this is normal.

Not one damned thing of this is normal.

Maxwell should be the one agonizing over finals week. Not me. In fact, Maxwell should be graduating from Kent State in six days.
I should be proud of all he's done and fretting about his future. I should be bragging about him on Facebook and bombarding my loved ones with photos documenting his triumphs. In short, I should be doing regular mom stuff.

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I wish I could tell you that I am going somewhere with this maudlin navel-gazing. Alas. I am not. Except, perhaps, for this:

If you have a mother, please hug or call her this weekend. If you are a mother, please hug or call your children this weekend. And if you know a bereaved mother, please know that this is probably an intensively difficult time for her.

Mother's Day and graduation days are likely conspiring to undo her.