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I’m at a loss today for what to say to all the people celebrating Mother’s Day. As a writer, I feel compelled to make my sentiments witty and heartfelt, with a dash hilarity. Yet, I don’t have it in me today. I suspect part of it is quarantine fatigue. I miss seeing my friends and friends who are family.

I suspect it also may be because I’m just tired today. I’ve had a few especially long and emotional days in a row. On Wednesday at 4:50pm, I took Dodger to the vet and we found out he had an abscess that needed to be removed ASAP. I picked him up on Thursday morning at 8:00am and brought him back to the vet.

On our way to the vet Thursday morning. You can tell he felt poopy.

Around 3:00pm I got a call that everything had gone well, but he was still quite loopy from the anesthetia. When I picked him up at 6:00pm, Dodger stumbled out with the vet tech. I opened the car door for him and before the tech could help him up, he tried to jump into the backseat of Cecily’s car. This feat would be no problem for regular Dodger. Dopey Dodger, however, belly flopped as the tech and I gasped in horror.

As Dodger recovers (he’s doing well, btw), he can’t be a free-range dog in Cecily’s yard and always needs to be on a leash. For the past three days, I’ve been getting to Cecily’s around 8:00am to take Dodger out and give him his medicine. It’s a break in routine and I even missed meditating this morning, only the fifth time in 2020 that I’ve missed my morning meditation practice.

Like a lot of other people, I haven’t been sleeping well anyway from the stress and uncertainty about what’s going to happen with the pandemic.

We’ve also had some really weird weather as of late, what with freezing cold temperatures and snow. It’s not often you see forsythias blooming and snow on the ground. Third Winter is definitely messing with my mind just a bit.

Add in the typical sleep problems of a person with narcolepsy, and you’ve got yourself a tired person.

So words fail me on how to properly say thank you to all the Moms out there, and all the women and men who serve in some mom capacity.

The best I can do is represent my feelings in these cards I made this morning.

I realized last week I haven’t done any just-for-fun creative endeavors since the pandemic started. Since I was too tired to write this morning, I got out my art supplies and set to work making some cards.*

If you can believe it, I painted those cards myself using a gel plate painting technique under the instruction of Norfolk artist Tom Hlas. Tom gave a gel plate painting workshop a few months ago (feels like years ago), and I ended up loving it! I also ended up with multiple gel plate paintings left over to use as I so desire for future projects.

The hearts on these cards aren’t perfect. They’re lopsided and uneven. They’re splattered, messy swirls of color that shine in some areas and fade in others. Yet, they are beautiful in their imperfections (at least I think so) and the whole of each card is greater than the sum of its parts.

Which I think pretty much sums up the way we love each other in any relationship that we have, including the relationships we have with our moms and mom-like figures.

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

*Shout out to Norfolk artist Leslie Watkins! Without her support, not only would I NOT have art supplies, I wouldn’t even know how to begin being creative with visual arts. You can watch her teach me how to make a card here.