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.
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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.