Today has been a great and terrible day. An interesting day, at any rate, and in some ways a strange one, at least emotionally, for me. It was Mother's Day.



On Monday or so I bought a card to send my mom. Because it is Mother's Day and I wanted to send her something, just so she'd know I was thinking of her. The card has been sitting on my table all week because I had no idea what to put in it. It's still sitting there now, blank. My mother and I, as I may have mentioned previously, are not on speaking terms at present. No matter how much I surely want to send her something, the card I bought just isn't appropriate. It's falsely cheerful and I fear would just add insult to injury. This is no time to get back into the habit of pretending nothing is wrong and going about our lives. That just doesn't work.



In some ways I fear we're not going to bounce back from this one. I just don't know what's going to happen. She's upset about something I wrote in here about three weeks back (which by the way is no longer in here, so don't bother looking for it). I can see her point, what I said was written in frustration and as a result was really out of line. I can't blame her for being upset about it because I would be too, and I really am sorry that she read it. I really am. I didn't want or mean to hurt her. Our relationship has been so fragile ever since I first decided to convert. We were just starting to put it back together, and I think I just smashed it again.



It's hard to figure out where to go next with everything. Because, I am sorry for hurting her. I have apologized for hurting her. But at the same time there is a deeper issue at play that I can't back down from. I believe in what I believe in. I can't say that in a way that she likes unless I back down and give in. I don't know how to say it without hurting her, and I don't want to hurt her. But it needs to be said, because it needs to be understood. The way she heard it in this blog was a bad way for me to say it. I didn't write expecting her to read it, but she did.



Can we just forget this and move ahead? In some ways maybe yes, but not in others. I beg you to forgive me for the hurt I've caused, but please understand where I am. I'll never say another word about being a Catholic unless you ask, if that's the way you want it. We can ignore the finer details and not try to convert each other, but you have to understand this one thing. I am Catholic because I believe it is right, and I believe it is true. I believe the Catholic Church is the one created and intended by Jesus Christ to teach and lead and guide His people until He comes again. I believe it does matter which "branch" of Christianity you follow, they are not all the same, and they are not all "right". That's why I converted. That's what faith means: believing something is true and right even without being able to know for sure. My faith is in God and also in the Catholic Church, and that's just the way it is. I can't and won't back down from that. You just have to accept it about me.



Part of being a Christian is loving and accepting others where they are, and not bashing other faiths even if you disagree with them. The other side to that is, as Christians we are called to bear witness to our own faith, to stand up for it and to defend it and sometimes even to suffer for it, but not to back down or to give in. The way I translate that to myself is such: I cannot say that anyone else's beliefs are wrong just because they disagree with mine. But at the same time, I cannot say that they are right. I can say that I believe in something, and that you believe in something else, and that we disagree, and that I see the merits in what you do, and I accept and understand why you believe what you do. And that's the best I can offer.



As for me and my mom, I'm not sure where we're at, or where we're going. I'm sorry that I hurt her and I've apologized for that. But I think she wants me to say that faithwise we're both right, and I can't say that. I can try to explain myself over and over but I think I am just hurting her, over and over, by doing that. All I can do is just keep apologizing for hurting her.



It seemed wrong today, to be celebrating motherhood, and loving our moms. To be sitting in a living room with flowers and cards that read "Happy Mother's Day", and three kids and their mom who all love each other and were teasing each other and were happy to spend time together for an evening. It was so right and so wrong at the same time. Where was my living room, where was my happy family and our smiles and the comfortable chatting and the heart-shaped "Mom" necklace with its minute-but-still-real diamond around her neck? Why are the hard things pushing us apart instead of together? Why do we tell ourselves that our problems are our own to deal with, and isolate ourselves from each other, and then wonder why we feel so lonely and misunderstood?



Family isn't an easy thing and it's not supposed to be. All families have hard times and somehow they have to find their way through them. I don't know how it works. I think this year is the hardest I've been through with my family and I don't know how to fix it, it only seems to be getting worse. When we tease or complain, the underlying feelings aren't loving. The underlying emotions aren't wanting the best for each other, but for ourselves. Have we always been this way? Have I? Am I still? How does it change? Am I changing?



I spent the second part of today wearing a flower pinned to my chest. For Mother's Day. A flower from my Joe, a gift from a man to his girlfriend, but more, from a husband to his wife, from a father to the mother of his children. I'm not the mother of his children, and I'm not his wife, but this is the way he sees me when he looks into the future, and that vision is so important and special to him that he wanted to tell me so. That is absolutely amazing. Today I was celebrated, in a small way, for preparing to become someone important. Today I was counted, at least in one person's eyes, as being a part of a group that I am not a part of yet... when my best friend, who is pregnant, was told by her husband that she doesn't count as a mother yet. Thank you Joe, for loving me as the mother of your children even though I am really just your girlfriend. You made me feel special today and I didn't do anything to deserve it.



I am sending my mom a card. Not the one I bought, but actually one I've have had in my stationery tin for four years, that a roommate gave to me after raiding a card sale at the campus bookstore. I never had the right moment to use this card before but now it finally seems to fit. So I didn't call my mom today, and I didn't send her flowers or trinkets, and her card will arrive late and who knows when we'll be speaking again. I don't know if or how we'll figure it out, but I have to believe we will. She is my mother after all, and I am her daughter, and even though we seem to get on each other's bad side a lot I do love her. Eventually I do think we'll learn how to relate to each other again, it's just going to take some time and a lot of prayers.