Being A Mother on Mother’s Day

You would think that although my mother passed 14 years ago, I would be able to celebrate Mother’s Day without getting sad.  But it is still an emotional day for me.  I do have to admit, year after year it gets easier.  But usually at some point during the day, I have a teary moment.  It used to be really bad at first.  I would go to church, and they would salute the mother’s and sing songs about mothers and the sermon would be about mothers, and I would cry.  So I stopped going to church on Mother’s Day.  I have not been to church on Mother’s Day in 12 years. Actually in the last two, I have barely gone at all, but that will have to be saved for another post at another time. LOL

Two years ago on Mother’s Day weekend, I thought that I was actually going to be able to do something fun, and celebrate it in a normal way by going out to dinner and spending time with the kids. Well, suffice it to say that it didn’t turn out that way.  My daughter, Chelsi was on the dance team for her school, and there was a celebration the Saturday before Mother’s Day in Seoul where she had to perform.  So we took the bus to the base in Seoul, and she performed and everything seemed fine.  She went off with her friends, and I did a little shopping with my friend before it was time to go back down to our base.  We took a late bus back and the girls were really loud and excited the whole bus ride back.  And by the time we got home, it was really late, I was tired, but my daughter was bouncing off the walls.  

My husband was away on a training exercise, (they always schedule those things around the holidays), and my son was sleeping over at a friends.  So it was just Chelsi and me.  I decided that she was a little to wired and I told her that she could sleep in the bed with me.  Something that I hardly ever did with either of my kids.  She was 12 at the time, and she had only slept in my bed a few times when her Dad was gone.  So she was kind of surprised and happy at the same time. It took about an hour, but I finally got her to wind down, and then we went to sleep.  Around 2am, I woke up.  Literally, my eyes just popped open like I had never been asleep.  I was wide awake.  I lay there for a few minutes watching Chelsi sleep when all of a sudden she started having a Grand Mal Seizure.  The whole thing seemed surreal.  She was gasping for breath and her body was so stiff I could not move her.  I knew not to put my fingers in her mouth, but I was worried that she was going to choke, so I tried to turn her head to the side.  She was like this for what seemed like an eternity, and then she relaxed and fell into a deep deep sleep.  This is when I started to get scared because I couldn’t wake her up.  I called my husband who was in the field, he ran to the Doc’s tent and put him on the phone.  The doctor told me to try to wake her up and then take her into the Urgent Care Clinic on the post.  It took me about 15 minutes to get her awake and when I did, I took her into the clinic. The doctor on call examined her and then told us that we would have to take an ambulance ride to 121 Hospital in Seoul.

 After tests and observation, she was diagnosed with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy. My husband came out of the field and we spent Mother’s Day in the hospital with her. Me, lying next to her in the hospital bed and her Dad stretched out on two chairs. To this day, she doesn’t remember having the seizure at all.  But she kept telling me that she was sorry that she ruined my Mother’s Day.  I kept telling her that I was thankful to God that she was alright. We bonded so much during the time when we didn’t know much about the illness.  We had to go to Hawaii from Korea so she could see a Pediatric Neurologist. It was five days with just us two girls in the most beautiful place on Earth. Chelsi is 14 now, and we are closer than ever. Yesterday, we went to Coldstone Creamery and Ulta together.  In many ways, we are like best friends although she knows that I am still her mother first.

I can’t say for sure why these things happen.  But I do believe that one of the reasons that Chelsi had her seizure on Mother’s Day and I was the only one there to deal with it, is  because I needed to stop seeing Mother’s Day as a sad day and start appreciating what I have been blessed with.  I had to learn how to stop crying over what I have lost and be thankful for the beautiful relationship that I have with my babygirl, and my wonderful son who tries my patience but who will be alright.  And besides, I know that MY mommy is up there in spirit watching over me, just like I watch over my babies down here.

To all of the mother’s who read this Have a Wonderful, Wonderful Mother’s Day and God Bless you.