“You are my sunshine my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray, you never know dear how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away”. As I reflect on this song written by John S. Hurt, I think about my daughter. I often sing this song to her because she is the sunshine of my life but, there was a time when my sunshine was taken away. The sky was completely gray, my sunshine was eclipsed by a multitude of clouds. The clouds of depression, being overwhelmed, loneliness, neediness, and so many others, were blocking out the light that I had so much anticipation to give birth to. My sunshine was fading behind these unexpected feelings and emotions.
These clouds were taking my sunshine away and I had no idea how I was going to get it back. Just like in nature, in order for the sunshine to return the clouds have to go away. Now how to get rid of those clouds are not going to be the same for every mother. Some clouds can be blown away, some will move on their own, and sometimes it needs to rain for those clouds to go. For me my breakthrough with the clouds took all three. When the overwhelming cloud came, I had to call on friends and family for support to blow that cloud away. When the cloud of frustration or tiredness would come, simple breathing techniques or rest would help breakup those clouds and when the cloud of helplessness would come with the thundering sound of a screaming baby I would allow myself to have a down pour of tears to ease the heaviness.
Spring was clearly the season I was in, as it was a rotation of April showers for the first few months after having my daughter and I couldn’t wait for the May flowers. Now to be clear this is my experience and every mother’s story is not going to be the same, and the dealings of our cloudy days/ months will not look the same either. I will say at the end of the day, we all are striving to find those rays of light to pierce even the darkest of days, because we know our sunshine is just hidden, and if we fight hard enough we can look forward to more sun filled days than cloudy ones.
That is the purpose of this blog. Cater to Mom is here to provide support and healing. Through this blog I hope to be able to provide rays of light in laughter, tears of joy/ release, and comfort. So in closing, I felt it necessary to put a new spin on this lullaby as we began this journey together, “We love our sunshine(s) our only sunshine(s), they make us happy, even when we feel gray, they will know dear, how much you love them, cause we won’t let nothing, take our sunshine away”.
