Say It With Flowers

Did you know the advertising slogan “Say It With Flowers” was created for a Mother’s Day campaign by The Florists’ Telegraph Delivery (or FTD) association in…1918! And yet, it somehow still sounds fresh today. I haven’t had any flowers delivered…yet, and it’s absolutely raining buckets here in Jersey City. But if it were a sunny day, I think this floral print maxi dress would be the start of a perfect Mother’s Day look.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow Stripe

Did you ever read a “Series of Unfortunate Events” with your kids? It’s a multi-book collection about three orphans who survive one calamity after another. While the past 10 days for me haven’t been that dramatic, they have been pretty stressful. I took on probably one too many freelance writing projects, am rehabbing from a bout of Sciatica, threw out my iPhone adapter (Why, Apple?!?), and had to undergo a pretty invasive medical procedure (fingers crossed on  that one!). So…looking to rainbows, and wearing them, made me feel more hopeful, more confident, more happy.

Mother’s Day Musing

When I became pregnant for the first time, the first person (aside from my husband Chris!) I shared the news with was my Mother. Having made it through the teen and college years, we were solidly BFFs. I so looked forward to all the years we would share as Mommy and Nana. But that was not to be. Shortly after my first son Pierre was born, my Mother was given a diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I’ll never know if it was life going and life growing, but I became pregnant with my second son Spencer while Mom was in remission. His birth and her decline were inevitably intertwined.  I was 7 months pregnant with Chanler, my third and last son, when she died. She had suffered so much, for so many months, that we knew she was going to a better place. Still, the huge gaping hole of being Mother-less as a new Mom loomed before me. I mentally and physically struggled to read the 23rd Psalm at her her Memorial Service. And to picture my life, and my children’s lives, without her. I was so used to talking to her every day. Really. But now I had lost my best friend. Not a day, a week, a month, a year goes by without me wishing she could have seen (and supported and hopefully approved of) me as a Mom. And more importantly truly known and enjoyed my three amazing sons. Every year I so wish I could wish her “Happy Mother’s Day” just one more time.