Chiming In on The Mother’s Day Shift!

Jen wrote a really inspiring post this week about making a shift this Mother’s Day.  She is planning on quietly honouring her awesome mom, who passed away two years ago, and spending the day honouring the other people in her life who help her on her path as a mother and a woman.  I love this direction.  I’ve had a very hard time with Mother’s Day since my mom died ten years ago.  The last couple years, I’ve done my own selfish shift and focused on ME and the fact that I’m a mother now too!  But I’m ready to join Jen in this shift and remember my mom but think about some other women who have helped me.  Today – specifically one.

Ten years ago I lost my mom.  But my dad lost his partner.  His wife of 40 years.  And he was lost to put it mildly.  He was also a bit of a hot commodity.  Hey – my dad is a respected business person, he’s a very interesting guy AND okay, he’s a good looking dude!  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that he’d get involved with some chick my age.  I was.  Like many men who are widowed later in life, my dad started dating someone very soon after my mom died.  Suffice it to say we nicknamed her The Baroness (ever seen Sound of Music?) and gave two big thumbs down.

Shortly after he met Diana, and she’s been in our lives ever since.  Is it hard to welcome a new woman into your father’s life?  Absolutely.  It wasn’t an easy beginning.  At our first meeting, she suggested that my fiance probaly wasn’t the greatest match for me and explained why.  I remember being SO pissed off.  And then I broke up with him a few months later for essentially the reason that she said.  This was my first lesson in Diana telling it like it is.  More people should tell it like it is.  I wish I had listened earlier!

Our second solo outing was to a movie.  Of all things we saw AI – Artifical Intelligence.  I’m not sure if you remember this movie but the ending involves this robot boy having to choose between spending 24 hours with his ‘mom’ or being made a human boy.  I was hysterical in the theatre at the thought of what I was willing to give up for 24 more hours with my own mother.  Diana was hysterical for me and for herself, as she had gone through the pain of losing her own mother.  I knew then that she was a keeper.

She is a keeper.  What do I love about Diana?  She is incredibly respectful of my mother’s memory and our feelings of loss.  She has never tried to replace my mom or interject herself as a mother.  I spent my first thirty years learning from my mother about the type of mom that I wanted to be and the kind of family that I want to have.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her.  But in the last ten years, I’ve learned so much from Diana about the kind of woman that I’d like to be.  The confidence she has in me pushes me to be better and makes me think that I can do anything I set my mind to.

I question whether or not I would have Will in my life if Diana hadn’t come into ours.  And if you feel that you want to know EXACTLY what Will’s entry into the world looked like, just ask Diana.  She was right there holding a leg and loves to graphically describe her grandson’s birth!

Don’t get me wrong!  She can drive me nuts too. Sometimes I need a thesaurus to decipher her sentences.  Sometimes I need to speed her up to get to the end of a story.  And sometimes, her ability to tell it like it is is hard to hear (I’m keeping the mole) but I’ve learned to appreciate it and often strive to be able to so fearlessly be straight up with people.

Here’s what you need to know.  Diana loves my dad.  She loves my kid.  She loves me.  She could have run for the hills because a man with four adult, opinionated, grieving children is probably not top of the list for a strong, successful, happy woman.  I’m so thankful that she stayed.

So I’m joining Jen in the Mother’s Day shift and adding Will’s grandma to my list of women who have and continue to influence me on my path.