Mother’s Day is a loaded holiday for many people. Television advertisements bombard us, asking: “What are you doing for your mother? Where are you being taken? What gift are you giving or hoping for this year?” What I seldom hear publicly or on the radio, or see in a TV ad, is anything to honor all of the women and men who struggle with this day…maybe struggling because they longed to be a mother but was never able to conceive, birth a child or adopt; or because the relationship with their mother or wife/husband or child looks like a perfectly wrapped package outside, when in fact the relationship between mother and daughter or mother and son or husband and wife is imperfect and fractured with the truth hiding inside a beautiful box.

Wisdom is asking us to ponder, chew on and swallow in little pieces the truth about some things this Mother’s Day. Honoring your mother or wife doesn’t mean lying to yourself about how you feel about your relationship with her, or about how you feel if your heart is broken because this is your first or fiftieth year of being a mother without one of your children being alive. This can be a time to give ourselves permission to reengage with what is true about being a mother…that it is a gift and honor, but can be harder than steel to pull off and that even when we do, we may still find ourselves left with unfinished pieces of a dream or puzzle. For those who want this day to pass like a swift bolt of lightning because it is a time when digging deep into the soil of your soul still won’t grow a smile, know that is okay too. Mother’s Day is about being who and what you are with understanding and compassion for yourself and those around you. For me, this Mother’s Day is full of a gigantic bushel of gratitude and a pit of sorrow. My mother of 88 years is healthy and still reaching for her dreams, and my daughter, (a 15 year old rescue Portuguese Water Dog, who remains the love of my life and gave me years of joy and eternal bliss, while being my private tutor regarding life) died only days ago making her peaceful transition, searing a hole in my heart and soul that has left me speechless and almost without breath. So, I weep and give thanks this Mother’s Day as I struggle to redefine its meaning to me and my own identity.

Whether we are being taken to a Mother’s Day brunch, hosting a lick-your-fingers-good barbeque, hiding under the covers waiting for a new sunrise to free us from sorrow, or mixing and matching joy with sorrow, tears with laughter, hope with despair, let us all try to wisely eat from the rich plate that renowned author and poet Alice Walker prepared for us this Mother’s Day, and be in pursuit of tending our own gardens.

Where would I be and Who would I be without you….? Yes, you, Dr. Katherine Dunham, who was one of the first African Americans to earn her bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Shortly before Dr. Dunham died, I was blessed to meet her at the New York screening of Oprah’s “Legends” premiere. Not knowing her, but “knowing” her, I saw a regal, dignified woman sitting in what was her wheelchair, but to me it looked like the throne of a queen garbed in her royal colors. I knelt down at the foot of her wheel chair; she took my hand into her strong, soft and distinguished hand. I looked up at this queen of the world, I looked into her eyes as she lovingly penetrated me with her gaze…and then, I felt the transfer of her rugged and brilliant life deposit into me “food,” soul food that I would need to make my journey. Dr. Dunham died shortly after this encounter…it was the first and last time that I would see her and yet to this day, this moment captured in a photograph which hangs on my wall reminds me of who I am in seasons of delight as well as in times of spiritual drought and adversity. I speak her name and I feel her power and covering. Like Dr. Dunham, in my own family lineage, my maternal grandmother, the daughter of a freed slave who is 106 years old, my mother who is 88 years of age, my Aunt who is 90 years old and my Godmother, a young 68 years of age are women who have profoundly shaped me both by word and deed…they each survived the unsurvivable.

I would not be the woman and person that I am without my personal intimate village of women friends whose love keeps me swimming when I feel like I’m drowning and who are my memory of my own God given dignity when pain has made me drop it like it’s hot.