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My husband has been asking me all week what I want for Mother’s Day, and I keep telling him I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

Do I want the house cleaned or the laundry done?

Do I want flowers and perhaps a gift card?

Do I want a special dinner planned?

Do I want to sleep in and then take a long nap, too?

Sure, my car needs to be cleaned and my floors do, too.

And a fresh bouquet and a gift card would be a lovely thing to receive.

Dinner someone else makes sounds nice, along with a clean kitchen afterward.

But I don’t care about those things right now.

I just don’t.

And I realize that what I want I can’t have.

Because what I want is for everything and everyone to be OK.

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I want my kids to have their lives back.

I want my son to be on his eighth grade Washington D.C. trip and to be spending his last weeks of school celebrating his graduation. I want to watch his soccer tournaments every weekend and have that end of the year party I promised him.

I want my daughter to be spending time with all her friends and working a job to save for college. I want her to have the summer experience she’s been excitedly planning for years.

I want our finances to be secure and our futures, too.

I want my kids to look forward to something, anything really.

RELATED: The Hardest Part is Yet To Come. What Will We Do About It?

I want our summer vacation back on and all the camps and pools to open.

I want to go out grocery shopping without worrying about what will be left on the shelves or who is wearing a mask.

I want my mom to come out of her lonely isolation and celebrate her 80th birthday with friends and family near.

I want the countless people suffering from this horrific virus to be healed.

I want the front-line health care workers to feel relief and restoration from their tireless work.

I want all of those who have lost so much to somehow gain it back.

I want all of those grieving, at the very least, to have the opportunity to honor their loved ones lost.

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I want families reunited and friends hugging and crowds gathering during the wonderful summer months.

I want weddings to be held and graduations too. I want people to be sharing in life’s greatest moments together.

And I want our economy to recover and people to be employed.

I want all the pain and anger and fear to be fought with love and peace and hope, not hate and violence and lies.

I want an answer, a solution, to this horrid mess the world is in.

Oh, I want so much right now.

What do I want for Mother’s Day?

Forget the flowers and cards and lavish gifts.

Forget sleeping in and having a special day . . . 

I just want everything and everyone to be OK.

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Christine Carter

Christine Carter writes at TheMomCafe.com, where she hopes to encourage mothers everywhere through her humor, inspiration, and faith. Her work is published on several various online publications and she is the author of "Help and Hope While You're Healing: A woman's guide toward wellness while recovering from injury, surgery, or illness." and “Follow Jesus: A Christian Teen’s Guide to Navigating the Online World.” Both books sold on Amazon.

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