Editor's Note: Missing Mom on Mother's Day

Growing up, Mother's Day always meant the same thing. We'd get up early, and I'd pile presents and homemade cards around my mother's chair in the living room. Since I lived with my grandmother, too -- my beloved Nanny -- the day also included gifts and cards for her.

Next, we'd all head to Sorrento's, an Italian restaurant in Bay Ridge that we loved, where we'd all feast on lasagna and potato croquettes and where my mother would have a glass of white wine. At tables nearby, other families came bearing gift bags filled with presents as they celebrated their own mothers -- the restaurant came alive with laughter and love as families rejoiced in sharing the special day.

When both my mother and grandmother died, within three years of each other, Mother's Day became something very different. I stayed far away from card stores -- one look at a Hallmark card for mothers, or " To Nana," made me break down, sobbing, in front of all the customers. It was just too hard, too painful.

The same thing held true for restaurants. Although my own baby boy was a year old when I lost my mother, and I had invitations to Mother's Day dinners at restaurants from loved ones and friends -- I couldn't do it. Hearing other mothers and daughters laugh and celebrate, watching them exchange presents and cards and gift bags, filled me with a sorrow so deep I didn't think I'd ever be able to smile again.

The unfairness of it all made me want to rage, sometimes. How could I be left alone, without my mother and grandmother, when I was still such a young mother with an infant to raise? Who would I call in the middle of the night when my Billy had a fever? Who would sit next to me at all the school plays and concerts and graduations, cheering and crying and beaming with pride?

It was my own little boy, my precious Billy, who was my salvation. In his eyes, I saw my mother's reflection -- he has her beautiful brown eyes. He has my Nanny's smile -- and her deeply ingrained sense of punctuality. (Knowing how I tend to run late, my son began to tell me that school rehearsals started a full half hour earlier than they did, just so we'd get there on time. I knew that somewhere, Nanny was smiling.)

I realized that my love for my son is their legacy. My mother and grandmother, although no longer with me, imbued me with the knowledge and the love I needed, to be a mother to my own little boy. They taught me, through their steadfast examples, how to be a mother, a mother who loves her son with all her heart. They taught me to savor every second of my son's childhood, because those moments would be fleeting.

A dear friend once told me, as I stood crying for my mother outside church on Mother's Day morning, that she would not want me to be shedding tears. "She'd want you to be smiling -- making memories with your son on Mother's Day," she said. "Your son needs to have memories of his own mother on Mother's Day -memories of his mother smiling, not crying."

My friend was right. And so today, I'll spend joyful hours with my son, home from college, sharing a walk on the beach and dinner. I'll open presents and a card, and maybe even have a glass of wine -- and when I do, I'll toast my mother and Nanny, and thank them for making me the mother that I am. Thank them, most of all, for all the love -- their love for me, that lives forever in my heart.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom and Nanny. I love you and miss you every single day.