Mother's Day for me is a holiday fraught with conflicting feelings. I never know whether I'm supposed to be (a) mourning the death of my own mother, (b) celebrating happy memories woven through the complex and difficult relationship my mom and I shared, (c) grieving the lack of the typical mother-daughter relationship we never enjoyed, or (d) rejoicing over my own sweet child who is helping me create a new mother-child bond. It's a day I spend flip-flopping between feelings of joy and sadness, fullness and loss. Throw in a healthy dose of sensitivity to women who are grappling with infertility or pregnancy loss -- because I've been in those shoes, too -- and my Mother's Day turns into a hot mess that looks nothing like a Hallmark greeting. *** Mother's Day is hard for me listen: motherless and childless, I am untethered in a world full of strings 5-13-12 *** For the majority of the time I knew her, my mother was fighting physical and mental illness