Mother's Day is not just for me and mine!

It is Mother's Day weekend, and naturally, I celebrate my own mother, who made a spectacular success of it.  (And who better to say so than her daughter, who got to see her in action up close and personal?)  Just as naturally, I celebrate my daughter, who is a wonderful mother to my two precious grandsons (the HUGE payoff for not strangling her when she was 15 and impossible, as I like to remind her whenever I can work it into the conversation!)

But I also know that there are a lot of people for whom Mother's Day is a painful reminder of what they don't have, whether through loss by death, or perhaps because they never had it in the first place.  We all have our own picture of the perfect mother in our heads.  Whatever your vision of her, most of us had some variation on that theme, and we know and appreciate how fortunate we were, or conversely, what we missed out on.

Life is not a competition....

I have seen a meme on facebook quite a few times about not judging others, because you don't know what is going on in their life.  I like that meme, because of the solid truth in it.  In fact, I have been thinking about that idea, and have taken it a step beyond.  I think that not only should we not judge, but instead, we should try to uplift wherever we can, because, quite simply, life is not a competition.  It is a communal event, and the better one does, the better we all do.

It is impossible to see inside the heart and soul of another person.  And although their life may not seem overwhelming to you, if it is to them, well, then it is.  Everyone's crisis is personal and overwhelming to them.  And really, does it matter whether it rises to your bar or not?