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Mother's Day 2020: A Holiday We'll Remember

In 2012, The NotMom launched on Mother's Day and as you might expect, it was a holiday and an event I knew I would never forget. As a childless woman, I thought I might never experience another Mother's Day as special. Today, eight years later, I see that I misjudged the unpredictability of Life.

The year 2020 presents us with a holiday to remember the rest of our lives, carefully trying to avoid a potentially fatal global pandemic that keeps us apart from our own mothers and families, our friends and our workplaces. It feels good to have this space to share hugs once again.

When I started The NotMom, it answered a very personal desire to connect with women like myself who were childless not by their own choosing. I believed that if only I could find such women, they would understand my melancholy feelings of being out-of-step with Mother's Day salutes on TV, at the grocery, at church and, well, everywhere.

My own mother and godmother had already passed by 2012, but I was blessed to have others to honor on the holiday: my beloved mother-in-law and my favorite aunt. They took my attention away from myself, and that was good. This year, only my aunt is still here. Sadly, I cannot visit her assisted living facility where quarantine policies are in place to protect her and me, too.

There were more surprises in store for me starting at the close of the 2017 NotMom Summit. Soon after I celebrated achieving my primary goal to connect women without children and prove to them that they are NOT alone even as they may feel out-of-place or out-of-sync with the females around them, it was as though the lights went out. I suffered several life-threatening illnesses and recovery made online work too challenging to perform.

And yet, I couldn't pull the plug. I'd cry at the thought of it. Hard.

If you're reading this, maybe you were one of the hundreds who kept reading and subscribing even through months without new content. Maybe you reached out to ask when we were planning the next in-person Summit. If that was you, know that your love was and is appreciated, and yeah, made me cry some more.

So this year, following my state's stay-at-home coronavirus restrictions, I found myself thinking about The NotMom. I wondered how Mother's Day 2020 is impacting younger women who may want children someday but right now can't even find a non-virtual date. Were I unattached and in my 20s, I might be freaked out AF.

As it is, I know I'm not the only one missing a real-life holiday connection with women who mothered me or those I love. We've all seen video of an adult daughter's hand separated by glass from the hand of her mother or grandmother and it's as hard to watch as it is to do.

That's about the time that my friend and partner Laura LaVoie asked if I had thought about a podcast. I had.

In many ways, The NotMom is as comforting to me now as it was when it started. The difference is that since then, thousands of you have let me know you feel the same about our little brand, whether you are not a parent by chance, like me, or you chose to live contentedly childfree. Join Laura and I this afternoon on Facebook Live at 3:00 PM EST for our new adventure, The NotMom Podcast.

Don't worry if you've got things to do -- the recorded episode will be available on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and new episodes and guests are planned.

We ain't dead yet, and neither are you. What will you do between now and the unpredictable days until the next Mother's Day? Take care of yourselves, take care of whoever you love (two- and four-legged), and have a happy Sunday!

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