Today will be my 24th motherless Mother’s Day. My mom died in 1992 of a heart attack no one saw coming – she was young, healthy and vibrant. My family was stunned with grief. I was nine years old, and at that time, I had no way of knowing how my mother’s unexpected death would define the person I’d become – for better and for worse.

The following Mother’s Days were painful. I dreaded them. Think of it: the mandatory crafts in elementary school, my peers listing their mothers’ best qualities. Teachers would announce the afternoon’s activity, then glance awkwardly in my direction. What to do with the sullen girl in the corner? Some suggested I make a card for someone else, maybe a grandmother? But my grandmothers were dead, too, gone within months of my mom. There were years I made the best of it, drawing a picture for my father or giving my craft to a friend’s mom. Other years, I flat-out refused to participate, and no one pushed me.

In my early twenties, I waitressed, and it helped. Mother’s Day was always a busy day, with specials and brunches and packed houses. It’s hard to be sad when you’re focused on getting orders straight, on not dropping plates. I’d volunteer to work that day, sometimes doubles, so others could spend time with their families.

(Still, though, when friends complained of being single on Valentine’s Day, I wanted to slap them. “Think!” I longed to shout. “Think of all the people grieving on these days of regret built into the calendar, shoved in our faces by television commercials and greeting card aisles.” But my anger would not have dissolved their loneliness, and sadness is relative.)

Eventually, the pain of Mother’s Day dulled for me, scarred over by so many years of post-mother life. My bitterness has dulled, too. I hope that I am less prickly, more rounded at my edges, less quick to bite.

But it’s not just time that has changed Mother’s Day for me. I’ve come to appreciate other important women in my life, including those who stepped in and loved me when they didn’t have to – when I may, in fact, have been a little hard to love. Kathy Dolce and Nikole Leavitt, thank you for that. Connie Waczkowski, thank you. My sister, Kristin Poland, who is now a mother herself and my forever best friend. My husband’s mother, Toni Cuthbert, who accepted me into her family from my very first date with her son. Though I still remember my own mom on Mother’s Day, it is these women I think of now.

My wonderful husband, Joel, has made the holiday lighter, too. Because though we’ll likely never have children ourselves, he helps our dogs “shop” for me on Mother’s Day, and they always get me a new plant for my garden, or chocolate, or both.

Mother’s Day is no longer a day to be endured or simply “gotten through” for me. It is a day to make sure I call all the moms in my life and tell them I love them, to deliver gifts or give hugs. And, of course, to unwrap my own presents from my furry darlings, Tobi and Harvey.

When I think of it, Mother’s Day isn’t so motherless, after all. It’s different than it was; maybe it’s different from what I’d like it to be. But on this day, as on other days, I no longer stare into the void my mother’s death left, but instead look around me at the amazing women in my life, count my blessings and call myself lucky.