Who Was The Mother’s Day Stalker?

For six years, a secret sat unsettled and weighed heavily on my mind every spring. On Mother’s Day, I would travel to Bakersfield to visit my mom and grandma to celebrate and give them their gifts, and I would receive something from my stalker.

My sister found the first anonymous Mother’s Day card that I received. The carefully placed envelope was wedged in the windshield wipers of my car. I was completely confused. I wasn’t a mother, and I had no intentions of becoming one any time soon, but the words that were written inside the decorative card had implied in a congratulatory way that this Mother’s Day was my first official one.

I asked everyone that I knew about the card. Was it an accident? Did someone mistakenly assume I had some secret child somewhere? I wanted to know, but everyone was so adamant about not being involved in the strange Hallmark moment.

It wasn’t until the next year when I received another Mother’s Day card, implying that I had added to my imaginary family that I realized the cards were no accident. I had acquired a stalker that would only engage with me on an annual basis. In response, I would hold my usual witch hunt for the perpetrator asking everyone who knew where I used to live in Bakersfield about their whereabouts the night before.