Mother's Day- a different take

[thrihyrne]

In years past I have made it a point to reach out to those for whom Mother's Day is somewhere between a bittersweet day to one of outright grief. Early in my divorce it was particularly challenging for me as I wasn't in communication with my former stepchildren— and still am not. With time that has eased (and in recent communication with my wasband, I found out that they both have summer internships; yes, they're both in college now), but I know it can be a particularly challenging day for those who have lost children, those who loved non-biological children who are no longer in touch, those who have been trying to have children and who remain without them, and those who may be in an uncertain position of adoption, loving a child whom she may be required to surrender in the future.

I will re-post a poem I wrote back in the earliest of my Tolkien days, a poem written in April of 2003, addressing the question of: Where are all the mothers?

Ode to the Absent

In halls of Mandos
In unmarked graves
In poems of loss
In hidden caves

Éomer and Éowyn with flaxen hair
Must go to the earth and find mum there

In the fair Shire laments Frodo
Without mother's lullaby to sleep he must go

King Elessar thinks, You would be so proud!
But his mother, long-dead, is nowhere to be found

Gimli the gruff with kind heart of gold
Of his mother's beard no tale has been told

Exquisite Legolas, woe is he
Whoever bore him languishes in obscurity

Arwen's sorrows with daddy must be
Since Celebrían forsook her and went Over Sea

O Boromir! O Faramir! You strapping fine men
Though emotionally scarred by your mother's untimely end?

Because of mothers there is here such a dearth
This is a lament for Third Age Middle-earth.