Sunday was Mother’s Day and I went to services at a different church than my regular beloved parish, St. David’s Episcopal Church in Roswell Georgia. I won’t name the parish that I visited because while I want to tell a story, I don’t want to embarrass their good intentions and I’m a fairly odd case.
Mother’s Day and church used to be hard for me in my late 30’s. I was battling infertility and it really annoyed me when they would pass out carnations or roses or some flower to the mothers. While of course, they should honor mothers on Mother’s Day, I really wanted to be a mother so it seemed doubly offensive that I was denied both the baby and the symbolic fragrant fauna that accompanied the honor of giving birth. I eventually stopped going to church on Mother’s Day in an attempt to avoid the pain.
So this year, even though I was going by myself, I was really looking forward to attending and getting my flower. On my way to church, I called my mom, Carol and wished her a happy Mother’s Day. People who know me know that Carol is my adoptive mom, having lost my birth mom, Mary, to post-partum depressive suicide when I was a baby. My dad remarried when I was three and Carol is the only mom that I’ve even known. I love my mom and really appreciate all that she’s done for my family and me over my entire life.
So imagine my surprise when I walked into my visiting church and they didn’t give out flowers to the mother’s they gave out flowers in honor of attendees’ mothers. The well-intended tradition requires you to choose between a white rose if your mother is deceased or a red rose if your mother is still living. That presented a quandry for me. On the way in, I avoided the decision all together and just went in to the sanctuary and prayed.
However, on the way out, the flower passer-outers were a bit insistent that I should have a rose and asked me which flower symbolized my maternal situation. I did not want to be greedy and tell them that I really deserved one of each. However, I could not bring myself to be disloyal to either the mother who died shortly after my birth nor the mother who sacrificed so much to adopt 3 children at the age of 25 by marrying my dad.
Ultimately, I left the church without a flower on Mother’s Day and a little pang in my heart. Don’t make me choose on Mother’s Day between my mothers. I love them both and appreciate them both. I would not be who I am without both of them. I stopped at the local Ingles and bought a pink rose on the way back to our lake house. It just seemed like the right thing to do.