Mother’s Day 2011. Bittersweet.

Today is a bittersweet Mothers’ Day.
Bitter because THIS is the year I found out some of how much my Mother lied before her death in 1990. They were big lies. Giant lies. Its complicated and I am still learning and sorting it out and probably will be for a long time. Complicated too because as difficult as she was to love even before I knew the extent of her betrayals, I was also proud of her for many things – for her activism for peace, civil rights and much more. These truths are painful, and still I would rather know them than live with fraud and hypocrisy. That is not courage, it is survival because the truth makes unfortunate sense out of the scrambled bits of memories that never made sense before.

Bitter also this is the 16th anniversary of the day our son Bill committed suicide. It has never fallen on Mother’s Day before that I can remember. Ouch. The anniversary is always a hard but falling on a Mother’s Day makes it even more difficult.

Sweet because of Noel. No mother could be more proud of a child or more happy with him and for him. Noel, I thank you and celebrate YOU on this day for all you are. Lucky am I to have you in my life.