Jaci Dawn

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.

My husband is going to take me anywhere I want to go tomorrow and I am waffling between the Oregon Coast or up into the mountains lo look for morels. Mushroom hunting is the practical side of me: the ‘shrooms should be popping out of the forest floor now. Our next chance to look will be the weekend of our oldest child’s birthday, and that may be too late.

The coast is tempting, too. We rarely go down to the beach even though it is no further away than the mountains we love to hike in. I don’t know why that is, except the mountains are remote and the beach has crowds of people and not much parking.

It may not be so quiet in the woods tomorrow: the nice weather will draw all the dirt bikes and ATVs out. Our prime mushroom hunting grounds are riddled with off-road trails. And if we are successful in picking mushroom, I have to come home and take care of them.

Left? or right? Which way to go?

I’m struggling a little emotionally with this Mother’s Day. I miss my mom. She’s been gone for almost 15 years and this Mother’s Day is especially emotional for some inexplicable reason.

Her irises bloomed today.

My father dug all of the irises up and shipped them to Oregon shortly after my mom died. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look at them, but my dad doesn’t like irises and they do grow like weeds once they are established. My mom had them planted in the gravel by the garage.

I happen to like irises. My dad took that as a sign of weakness and the box came with all the iris tubers. I love my dad for that.

Which opens a third possibility for tomorrow: staying home and working in the garden. That’s very tempting, too.

I don’t know what I want to do.

I do know what I do not want to do and that is clean house, make dinner, or do laundry.

Wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all my friends who are mothers (birth or heart) and wishes for joy to all the moms I know who are bereaved – and to all the daughters & sons who miss their mom this day.