Every day is Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a bittersweet holiday for our family. We lost my mother-in-law rather suddenly three years ago, and we are losing my mother very slowly to some sort of dementia. We live close enough to Mother to care for her on a daily basis, so in a very real way, every day is Mother's Day.

Every day I make sure she's taken her medicine. Every day I pick up the little messes she's left behind. Every day I try to encourage her when she feels depressed about her lack of memory.
And almost every day, I struggle with the anguish of her becoming someone besides the Mother I once knew.

We are so thankful, though. I could make a good-sized list of the things she is still able to do on her own. She still knows and recognizes all of us. She still understands a good joke and laughs. She still enjoys looking out at the birds, flowers and deer.

A patchwork quilt would seem trite and uninspiring if it did not have some trials and struggles of life woven in, to provide contrast to the good times and the blessings.