Today is Mother’s Day.

Over the past 11 years, this day has been a difficult one for me. My mother, Helene, is no longer with us. There truly isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish she were still here.

I don’t care how old I get, how wrinkled my skin becomes, how forgetful I become, how unsteady on my feet I may be . . . I am still my mother’s daughter. I missed her yesterday. I miss her today. I’ll miss her tomorrow. And always.

For many, this is a day of celebratory brunches, flowers and candy, hugs and kisses, and lots of laughter. To you, I say enjoy the day, bask in the moment, and make wonderful memories.

I am often choked up on this day. An air of melancholy fills my day. I become pensive, quiet, sad. I miss my Mom so much. I try not to let sadness overtake me because there is another in my midst who I’m blessed to have in my life.  I call her “Oma,” “moeders,” and “schoonmoeder”- and she means the world to me. That woman is my mother-in-law, Mies Albarda. Today, as in years past, she is miles away from her home in the Netherlands — she’s spending her Mother’s Day here, in North Carolina, with me and my husband. For this I am grateful.

My mother may be gone, but she is certainly not forgotten. And while I can’t spend my Mother’s Day with her in presence, I’m with her in spirit.

It is for the wonderful women like this—my own mother, my mother-in law, my grandmother, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends and your mothers, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, friends—they are the reason we say . . .

On this day that we celebrate mothers, we celebrate all mothers . . . As a stepmother, I may not be a biological mother, but that doesn’t stop me from loving like one.

For all the women like me, the stepmothers who are reviled in fairy tales, made the butt of many insensitive jokes and deemed to be evil no matter how hard they try to dispel that myth, today I salute you. To the women who made the choice to love the children of another as if they were their own, I say to you a very special Happy Mother’s Day. 

This is my ode to stepmothers.