In the United States, Mother’s Day is always celebrated the second Sunday in May; however, my mother was born in Mexico, where the official day to celebrate mother’s day is always May 10th. Therefore, our family always celebrates Mother’s Day, (El Día de las Madres) on May 10th. I miss my mother and think of her everyday. She was a strong woman. She had to be! Living with an incurable illness (epilepsy) must have been very hard. I didn’t understand how much she must have suffered when I was growing up, but now I do since I have the severe form of fibromyalgia.

Mom loved flowers. She enjoyed working outdoors taking care of her plants. Unfortunately, one day Mom fell down on the front porch. Luckily, my sister was at home and immediately took her to the hospital for a checkup.

At the time I was living in Fort Worth, too far away to help immediately. Yet, I knew my mother loved flowers, so I called a florist and ordered a bouquet of flowers to be sent to my mother’s hospital room. She told me that she loved the flowers, and that she was fine, but the attending physician recommended that she stay overnight. The following day as my sister was getting ready to take Mom home, she told me that my mother loved the flowers, said the bouquet was huge, and that they had to take it home. There was no way my mother was going to leave the flowers behind.

I talked to her that morning. Mom said that she was fine. I was grateful that nothing serious had happened to her when she fell, but she wasn’t worried about the fall. She was delighted by the flowers; hence, I thought placing pictures of flowers on my blog was a great way to honor her today.