Mother’s Day Is May 10th

Every year as this country and Hallmark begin the countdown to Mother’s Day in early May, I convince myself I won’t be affected by ads like this:

I repeatedly tell myself these ads won’t remind me how much I miss her, even eighteen-plus years after her death.  For years, when my brother and I were young, he and I pooled our money to buy her a Jean Nate fragrance set because once she happened to remark that was her favorite fragrance. The scent is described as a blend of citrus, floral and spicy notes and it appears that Revlon still makes the after-bath splash.  

Maybe I’ll buy a bottle of Jean Nate to inhale and remind me of my mom.  It beats cigarettes, the other odor which enveloped her as she chain smoked to deal with the stress of my illness.

I think I miss her so much because coincidentally, I launched my mental health advocacy and awareness organization, BWellBStrongBPD on March 5th of this year, which was the day before the anniversary of her death.  Also on May 5th, as I wrote in this post, I was chosen, along with 500, out of 3,000 applicants to attend the Tory Burch Embrace Ambition Summit.

My mother was a brilliant woman and entrepreneurship was in her blood, way before society believed women were capable of owning and running their own businesses.  When my brother and I were children, my father lost his job due to his drinking and my mom opened a needlepoint and knitting store in our Queens neighborhood called Idle Hands.  This was in the 1960’s and 1970’s before computers.  My mom calculated the knitting instructions in her head for every customer for every sweater she sold.  Now, a computer spits out detailed instructions.

When I was a senior in college in 1982, she closed the store and took some courses to refresh her computer knowledge.  Did I mention that before I was born, she worked in the early days of programming on the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) for Remington Rand.  She started a custom software company and did extremely well.  My brother started working with her and he took over the business when she passed away.

I never thought of myself of an entrepreneur.  I always believed I liked the security of working for a larger entity, having a steady paycheck and guaranteed health insurance.  Now I believe or know this was because I’d never found something I was so passionate about as spreading the word that recovery is possible from severe mental illness, especially from BPD and letting others know they are not alone in their journey.

I don’t have to think, I know, she would be incredibly proud of me.  Wherever she is, she is watching me and helping me along.  Whenever I needed an influx of cash, like to fund my website, at the last moment, the money found me.  My brother and I have some artwork in a gallery in Connecticut and it’s been sitting in their storage for close to eight years, but the images are on the gallery’s website.  For the first time in those eight years, we sold a painting totally out of the blue and my portion was just enough to fund my website.  Little things like that lead me to believe my mom is guiding my journey.

As tears run down my cheeks this Mother’s Day, they will be a mixture of sadness and joy as I cry because I still miss her and I regret we never got to have a relationship as two healthy adult women.  I was still so ill when she passed away.  I will shed tears of joy because I can still feel the unconditional love for me she held in her heart and her unwavering belief I could achieve anything I put my mind to, even when the psychiatrists told her the opposite.

Thanks Mom. xoxo 

Andrea