This is a day of mixed emotions…for so many.  A day set aside to honor all moms plus those women who hold special places in the hearts and minds of their families.  Something I wrote a while back touched upon this day that is a difficult time for so many.  Those thoughts still hold very true.  Some are without their mothers for the first time this year, others for much longer.  The pain of their respective losses cuts deeply, regardless of the time involved.

Yesterday, stores bustled with last-minute shoppers who were on a mission to find that perfect card, most beautiful bunch of flowers or garden plant.  As I drove home from work, local restaurants already had filled parking lots from families out to celebrate early, choosing to avoid the dining madness today.

It’s Mother’s Day, once again.  My 44th, in fact and I’m sitting here, reflecting on my years of motherhood.  I doubt if any mom out there has a gift they treasure more than their first, handmade, Mother’s Day card with stick-figures, hearts and X’s and O’s scrawled all over.  Hallmark ain’t got nuttin’ over some construction paper, crayons and artistic love!

I enjoy giving my two daughters something special for this day and, for my miles-away daughter in Florida, ordered what I thought would be a unique floral/fruit arrangement from some internet-based company called Ava’s Flowers.

Big mistake.  Big. Big…quite large, in fact.  Don’t go there.  Ever!

Hey, what can I say.  Like so many others, I simply became caught-up in the Mother’s Day shopping rush.  In short, what I ordered was not what showed up on the doorstep.  Of course, we all know that cyberspace is often a dangerous misleading place;  how can one ever be certain that some impressive photo staring us in the face on the order page is what will be delivered?  Right?  Well, it looked impressive and all the “padded” customer reviews on avasflowers.net just raved about this website.

Did I just hear someone say “bullshit”??

Order Placed: 

                                              Order Delivered: 

To add to this drama, my Florida daughter and her family sent ME a floral arrangement, not from this shady Ava’s Flowers operation, but from a local business in Florida.  It was delivered, squeezed into a large box, in a vase, with no water (for obvious shipping reasons) but the flowers weren’t even tubed.  As such, most were wilted if not crushed.  What we had here was a double Mother’s Day Whammy!

Texting back and forth, we both tried to laugh over the floral misfortunes we each experienced and Jen’s closing remark was “we are almost always in sync my dear mother”

Yes, we are.  And the same goes for each of my three children on some level.  A very good thing, indeed. 

It’s what being a mom should be all about.