Mother's Day: Of generations fading, generations rising -- and tiny miracles

Mother's Day 2015 was sweet and melancholy, affirming even as it brought the aching of, and blessings of memories.

 Barbara received lovely cards, flowers and heartfelt calls from the kids (and me), and we reached out to our daughter and daughter-in-law with what we hope were the same levels of love. That was the sweet.

But it also was a melancholy day, with some tears. Barb's and my memories of her mom, who also was one of my best friends, are fresh and a little less painful years after her passing.

And there's my mother, in the final stages of Alzheimer's, no longer knowing or remembering me or my sister, or my dad. When I check on her, though, there's this: the nursing home staff says her loving, if now nonsensical attempts at speech are for her two baby dolls.

Sad, but I also smile at this: both her dolls are babies of color. So are her two most recently born grandsons.

Somewhere in her shredded memories, is there an inkling of this next generation? I don't know.

But the nursing home staff says she specifically chose, and constantly holds those two specific dolls out of the assortment of mostly white babies.

I always smile when my daughter sends me the most recent video of newborn Nate and toddler Gabe. This Mother's Day, I was able to smile a bit broader.

In so many ways, I have lost my mother as much as Barbara has lost her's. The mourning is different, but feels very much the same . . . and yet, there was this "miracle of the dolls."

I'll take it.