A Special Mother’s Day Message: 3 Lessons to Inspire You on Your Journey (Updated May 2018)

Note: This post was originally shared Mother’w Day 2017. It has been updated for sharing today.

It’s 7:48 PM on Thursday night. I am hosting my weekly webinar for the clients in my author mentoring program and I hear my cell phone in another room ringing multiple times over the next 42 minutes. I ignore it and continue my webinar.

A minute or so after I ended the webinar, my brother finally gets through. Mom, who lives over an hour outside Houston, has had a massive heart attack. The local, small hospital is not equipped to provide the care she needs (a bed in ICU and heart equipment needed to help her survive this). The decision is made to life flight her to Hermann Memorial, a well-known hospital in downtown Houston.

My brain (and heart) can hardly take this all in. In the next 24-48 hours I come to understand that, had my brother Gregg, who is a trained EMT, not stopped over to check on Mom and diagnosed quickly the situation, she would not have made it to the next day. Massive fluid is on her lungs, making breathing almost impossible. Before Mom can get to the front door, she realizes she cannot physically walk to Gregg’s truck; the ability to breathe is dropping rapidly every second. She tells him to call 911.

For 3 very intense days, the doctors and nurses in ICU frantically work to treat her life-threatening situation. Miraculously she comes through this, battered and alive. Gregg convinces the doctor to prescribe a new heart medication that is not normally given to patients over 80. Given Mom has lived independently with no reliance on any one for care, the cardiologist reluctantly agrees.

All 5 of us siblings hold our breath and pray that the various medications work and Mom comes back to as normal a life as possible. The recovery from this life-threatening trauma to both the heart and lungs is very painfully slow.

Three months later, Mom remains very weak While she is diligently doing the exercises learned from physical therapy, adhering to a salt-free/low-salt diet, and working on lifestyle changes, she finds herself frustrated with how long this is taking. Yet she pushes on, knowing that sliding back to her lifestyle before this happened will hasten her days left here on earth.

Update May 2018: Mom is still with us! While the road to recovery remains very slow, a change in heart medicine, coupled with her recent decision to start a rehabilitation exercise program, is beginning to yield results. She has lived a very sedentary life, so it is no small accomplishment that she shows up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for her exercise class at 8:30 AM! I am so very proud of her for not only taking action but realizing that, if she just sat and waited to “feel better”, that would never happen! She finally understood that she needed to take control of this situation and start moving.

Why am I sharing this special Mother’s Day message and What are these 3 lessons?

I learned some very key lessons through this process, making Mother’s Day this year very different than in years past. Here they are….in case any of these lessons are just what you need to hear today.

Never take the ones we love for granted. Life is so very precious and we never know if there will be another time to close that hug or phone call with “I love you”.

The most precious gift we can give those we love is quality time..Time when we are not distracted, multi tasking, and thinking of the next thing we need to do. Time when we are truly listening, not only for the words being said but the intention and emotion behind them…and for what is not being said. During the 2+ weeks I spent with Mom after she returned home from the hospital, we shared many ideas, recipes, thoughts from the heart, stories and much more…That time together is very precious.

Guess what I else I learned? My Mom would give almost anything to see her Mom again…and have a home cooked meal she prepared. The tie to Mom is so very strong, even if we do not see eye to eye or there are conflicts or wounds still not healed.

We are all in our rightful place in the circle of life…and whatever we want to say, do, or give to those we love and care about, we need to do it now.

As my lovely, beautiful daughter’s birthday fell this year the week leading up to Mother’s Day, I felt the nudge to write her a very personal note, expressing things she may not have known or ever heard from me….asking for her forgiveness for all my mistakes as I bumbled through learning how to be a Mom (I was only 18 when she was born. Can you imagine how inept an 18-year old girl is with a newborn weighing only 6 pounds?) and letting her know how much joy she has brought to my life.

I also realize (just as I realize now much more clearly that my Mom will not always be here), I will not always be here. It was so very important that I express from my heart the things in the letter to my daughter. This letter may be something she clings to when the time comes that she cannot call me or ask for my advice. I want her to always know how very special she is and how very proud I am of the amazing, wonderful woman she has become.

Are you someone whose Mom is no longer with us physically? 

Several of my very dear friends have lost their Mom’s in the past few months. The birthday of my cousin’s very wonderful Mom (who was a very special 2nd Mom to me) falls on the day after Mother’s Day this year. The intensity with which she is feeling the loss is almost unspeakable.

If this is you (or you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and perhaps lost on your life journey), take a listen to a very soothing, special piano composition from my friend and professional connection, Stanton Lanier. May this be a gift you give yourself today..

Let the tears flow if they need to..

Release the emotions you may have held in for a long time, for they do lead to healing.

How do I know? I’ve had my own tears today on Mother’s Day…for many reasons.

And I am grateful for life’s many blessings and that we all have our faith and each other to lean on in moments when life does not seem to make much sense, our hearts are broken, and perhaps hope seems dim.

As we read in Psalm 30 verse 5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning“.

If this post has touched your heart, please comment below. From my heart to yours,

Diana