Life is marked by many milestones. Graduating from high school or college. Moving away from home. Landing a serious job. Maybe getting married or becoming a parent. Some events we work hard to achieve. Others we work equally hard to avoid. But, with the passage of time, many are simply unavoidable.

My brother and I crossed such a line this past winter when we lost our mom. For years we were the ones to cook her burnt toast and half-baked home-fries on Mother’s Day and carry breakfast to her room on a tray. As I got older, I sent gifts of fragrant soaps and family pictures and bouquets. My brother was likely more creative.

Now that I find myself on the other side of an unwanted demarcation, I can either ignore the upcoming holiday (at least where my own mom is concerned) or find new ways to make the most of it. If you, like me, are missing your mom this holiday, here are four ways worth celebrating:

1. Look beyond your loss. Grief is naturally self-centered. While there’s nothing wrong with this, habitually focusing on myself isn’t likely to help the hurt go away. Yes, there’s a time to weep, but experiencing grief also helps us to recognize the needs of others. Send flowers or an encouraging note to a mom you know is struggling.

2. Consider what you have to be thankful for. We can either count sorrows or blessings, but what we give our attention to will ultimately grow more powerful. Set aside a special time this holiday to think about or write down the ways in which you are thankful for your mom — or another mother figure, if your own wasn’t around. Thinking about the positive will lift your spirits instead of weighing you down.

3. Share the love. Recognize other women who’ve played a significant role in your life. Send a card or pick up the telephone and call an aunt, teacher, mother in-law, neighbor or other female role model who has loved and supported you and tell her how much she means to you.

4. Give. When I visited Welcome Home Africa, the Ugandan children’s home from which my family adopted our daughter Ruth, I saw the faces and learned the names of dozens of children waiting for a mother to call their own. If you are not able to give a gift to your own mom this holiday, consider giving a gift in her memory to a nonprofit organization for children who are still waiting to know the love of a mom.

I was blessed to have my mom for 42 years — not as many as I would have liked. But I’m eminently thankful for the time I had with her and for the artistic, bold, godly example that she was for me and my family.

“ Do not forsake your mother’s teaching,” the wise King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 6:20-21. “Bind them upon your heart forever.”

This I will strive to do, in honor of my mom. Not just on the second Sunday of May, but all year long.

MEADOW RUE MERRILL is a Mid-coast Maine writer who shares about God in her everyday life through “Faith Notes.” For more, go to www.meadowrue.com where you can follow her on Twitter or Facebook.