Seeds of Joy in the Soil of Sadness
Reflections on the day before my first Mother's Day without Chandler
*Quotes in bold italics are taken directly from First, Brush Your Teeth—Grief and Hope in Real Time.
May 11, 2019. The day before my first Mother’s Day without Chandler.
When you lose someone you love, an undercurrent of fear about the coming year of firsts takes residence. It starts as a simmer. Then as each of the “firsts” approaches—first Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, first birthday, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas— the simmer becomes a slow boil, rising higher and hotter with each passing day, moving you toward THE day. That first one without them. You’re sure you won’t survive that day. But you also know, logically, that you actually will. Probably. You just cannot fathom how.
Mother’s Day had the audacity to arrive just four months after kissing my boy goodbye, stroking his cheek, holding his hand.
My kids left the door wide open— “Mom, what do you want to do for Mother’s Day?” The plan fell into place.
But the day before. What then?
Don’t ask me how it crossed my path, but somehow I spotted a Facebook ad for a FREE goat yoga event on May 11 near where I live. Not sure how goat yoga came to be nor exactly how said goats would be participating in the yoga. But, intrigued, I further investigated. I asked my daughter Charli if she’d be down to try it, and she was in.
I was skeptical at first because I learned that most goat yoga events are at least $35, so why was this one free?
“My suspicion was that we would show up and find we had the B-list goats—the ones that were too old or too heavy to jump up on our back and play. Or maybe the narcoleptic goats that fall over asleep when startled.”
I was wrong.
From the git go, those baby goats were frolicking, eating pony tails, hopping on backs, and loudly voicing their opinions.
“One of the goats seemed to have a case of mistaken species identity—he really LOVED the lady in the front row. They may have exchanged numbers.”
I decided then and there that perhaps the cure to all humanity’s ills is most certainly goat yoga. It was one of the most joyful experiences, together with my girl Charli. On the day before the day.
You can’t do goat yoga without working up an appetite. Next stop was Stacks for breakfast, where I decided to honor deliciousness over health. Not to say you can’t have both. Just not this day. We ordered a few things to share, all floating in some manner of fat alongside generous portions of sweetness. The guava French toast with toffee syrup full of actual toffee bits…
“It was…oh, I don’t even know a word for it. I just know my eyes rolled back, and I left my body for a minute after the first bite.”
The day ended with hot yoga, sans baby goats. The real kind of hot yoga, mind you. Not the kind elicited by my own personal hot flashes during down dog. The word I chose for the day, and for my time of moving prayer on that mat…JOY. The bracelet I was wearing, gifted me by a friend just weeks before… “Choose Joy.” The scripture that kept running through my mind all day— “The joy of the Lord is my strength” Nehemiah 8:10.
Today, May 9, 2026, I heard each of my kids—yes, I will call them that forever—and my grandbabies call me by the most precious names that bring joy to my heart.
Mom.
Mimi.
There’s one voice I would give anything to hear again.
The one belonging to my sweet boy. He never hesitated to say, “I love you, Mom.” I always looked forward to his beautiful words to me on my birthday and Mother’s Day. Four of those words live on my forearm in his handwriting.
There will never come a Mother’s Day that I don’t feel the sting. The missing. The longing for one more Chandler hug.
And there will never come a Mother’s Day when I am not abundantly eternally grateful for the gift of being Mom to Chase, Chance, Chandler and Charli. They are my best thing. And Karen and Lauren, the remarkable women who love my sons—they are the gift you always pray for.
I will close today’s writing the same way I closed it on May 11, 2019. With the truth, the reality, that carried me then and continues to sustain me.
“I began this day with such joy. I will end this day remembering that whatever comes my way, I have a God who is with me, who will carry me through the hardest times, and who is able to plant seeds of joy in the soil of sadness.”