My Favorite Mother's Day

I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to share the one Mother's Day in my life as a mom. It has been sometime, but every time since that this day rolls around, I think of this.

I adopted Monique on May 27, 1997. She had been living with me since her 5th birthday on October 19, 1996. I had been in the county children services adoption process for over two years and she was the answer to prayers. Literally.

I was associated with the Companions of Jesus the Good Shepherd, a group connected to the Good Shepherd Sisters of North America. The foundress, St. Mary Euphrasia Peletier, was the first woman to found a congregation of women that not only had no male counter part in its roots, but allowed penitent women to become sisters. Now, if you were a young woman of means, you would be a choir sister. Middle class sisters became the active religious. The penitents were the Magdalens and didn't live in community with the other contemplative or active religious sisters. In deed, some of them lived at home during the evenings, but spent their days with the congregation, doing the work of the Good Shepherds, albeit what we may call this day "grunt work". Bottom line, the benevolent foundress' charism was to show love, compassion and refuge to disenfranchised women and children.

It was to this favored saint of mine that I prayed a nine day novena before 11 am each day, along with an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be. On the 9th day, at 11:05 am, my social worker called and told me they had a little girl named Monique that they have matched to me. She moved in on her birthday and two weeks later, even though the adoption was far from final and, to be honest, it wasn't "legal", I had her baptized Monique Marie Euphrasia, in thanksgiving to our favorite saints.

Then, comes the month of May, with Mother's Day just three weeks before our court date, my older 16 year old daughter and Monique had planned the perfect day for me. We attended mass in the morning, after which Rachel gave me a carnation and Monique gave me a beautiful, Japanese painted rock, decorated with a pink orchid (a re gifted item that my sister had given me years before, but she found it, liked it, wrapped it and re gifted it.... it is still to this day my favorite).

Then, they banished me to my room, to watch TV and videos, while they prepared my "surprise" spaghetti dinner. It was a surprise, because I wasn't supposed to know what they were cooking, as if the scent didn't give away a thing....

The dialogue down the hall was like listening to an old Abbot & Costello radio broadcast. "Mom! She won't let me help!" "Mom, she doesn't know how to set the table." "Mom! Can .... come back there with you?!" "No, YOU go back there!"

Finally, dinner was served and it tasted superb! Of course it did. It doesn't matter what was on the menu, I didn't have to cook it and it was prepared with love.

At the end of the day, I put Monique in her nightly bubble bath. She splashed, played and sung as usual. I was across the hall in my room, on the phone with one of my sisters. I told her, "...it was the best Mother's Day. I really enjoyed it." And from across the hall, a little voice shouted, "Me too!"

Happy Mothers Day!