By Sandra Bost
Mother’s Day was two weeks ago. I always love special days like that on social media. I also hate them. What I love about Mother’s Day on social media is the outpouring of love for the mommas in our lives: the birth ones, the foster ones, the adoptive ones, the spiritual ones, the teacher ones, the chosen ones.
What breaks my heart on social media Mother’s Days is the reminder of the void in so many hearts who are missing their momma because of death or circumstance, longing for a baby, or missing a child lost to death, addiction, and even the mother’s own life choices.
This was my first Mother’s Day without my momma. I wasn’t sure how I would feel, so I tried not to think about it in the days leading up to May 11. Due to my life experiences, carrying the ache of so many tragedies from stories shared by friends and foster children, I couldn’t let myself feel very sad because I realize how blessed I am. I got to have her for 52 years. She was there for me through the birth and weddings of both of my children. She had the opportunity to know and love all 5 of her great grandchildren. And, she didn’t suffer for a very long time once liver disease took over her body. Nevertheless, as I was scrolling through social media the Monday after Mother’s Day, I came across a poignant poem written and recited by Ashley Judd, and I wept.
I don’t know if you followed the tragic death of Naomi Judd in April 2022. I remember hearing about it and watching the sisters as Wynonna accepted her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame on behalf of The Judds, the day after her mother’s death. There was not a lot of information then, but there was speculation that she may have harmed herself. I didn’t know for sure what had happened, until the final stanzas of Ashley’s Mother’s Day poem, “Barefoot Pilgrims – A Mother Daughter Story.” But, she included enough details to make it clear, and I understood.
In her Instagram introduction of the poem, she shared the inspiration for her tribute. She wrote, “It was inspired by my teacher reading one [poem] he wrote for his partner of 50 years. ‘Her love wasn’t necessarily perfect. Her love was pure.’ That struck me… recognizing deep inside my mother’s love for me — it was pure.”
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It is fitting that Mother’s Day should be contained within it. I have shared before, in this space, about growing up with a mother who struggled with manic depression. I think that is why Ashley’s words resonated so deeply within me. The way she narrated these sacred encounters with her mother, through tears, brought to mind the way Momma used to look at me with her beautiful, stormy-brown eyes.
Ashley read and I remembered.
“As you behold me, oh I am beheld!
It’s a lamp lit from within.
I was an egg once inside you,
Yet you regard me like I am the lightbulb you swallowed that lights you up.
I lift my small chin, a sunflower to my mother’s beaming sunshine.
I grow in hope.
I lift my small chin like a sunflower to my mother’s beaming sunshine,
I grow in hope, even as there are swallowed stories inside your cells that seep sorrows untold.”
My momma and Ashley’s momma loved us with the purest love through their mental anguish. The Hope that we have grown in is enough to swallow up the imperfections brought about by the untold sorrows they each carried in their minds on their Earthly journeys. The Hope that they have grown in, as they are now beheld by the One they confessed as Savior, has made them new. Every tear has been wiped from their eyes and they sorrow no more. (Revelation 21:4-5)
I believe that this is the Hope for all of us, not only on Mother’s Day, but for every day celebrated on social media (and all the days in between). It is also the Hope I pray grows in the hearts and minds of all struggling on a journey toward mental health. Truly there is coming a day when all will be made whole. There will be no more death, mourning, crying, pain, or mental health disorders, because of a Loving Father God and the great price Jesus has paid for us all.
