I just realized that Sunday is Mother’s Day — and like every day it made me stop and think about mine.
As a child I was stuck on my mother like dried food on a high chair. She had to work really hard to un-stick me. Even after I became a mother myself she had to remind me frequently that I had my own house, my own kitchen and that she actually had other stuff to do. I just wanted to sit in her kitchen, with my babies, and play house with her – just like the olden days, every day.
I loved my mom like crazy and I liked her even more than that.
I was the first of four kids who would call Mom mom. Like most children, I loved the story she would tell about the day I was born. Mine was a tough birth apparently, mom almost died on the delivery table, but she didn’t – thankfully. I was a big baby, a happy baby and the most wanted child ever to be born. I grew up feeling special and breakable.
Mom and Dad had several false starts in the baby department before I arrived. They were so thrilled and thankful to have finally delivered a healthy child they handled me with kid gloves. My siblings weren’t quite as coddled but were equally loved. We were lucky kids.
My mom loved to mother, she was born to do it. She collected kids like other mothers collected things like spoons or teacups. My friends loved her almost as much as I did. She made mothering look like so much fun I couldn’t wait to do it myself.
When it was finally my turn I fell for mothering fast and hard. We had our first baby before our first anniversary, the second and third followed within four years. I was in mothering heaven and my mother… well, my mother joined the ranks of the grands and took grandmothering to a whole new level. When I watched her with my children I got the sense that all the love she had shown me was suddenly magnified by the years she’d been doing the loving. Grandchildren, it appeared, were the icing on the cake.
The best Mother’s Day present I’ve ever received was actually from my mother. She gave me an appreciation of children. She taught me how to look a little closer, listen a little harder and love like there’s no tomorrow. She gave me a point a view and perspective. She set the bar to which I reach.
I will think about and miss my mother tomorrow, on Mother’s Day, just like I do every day. I will send my gratitude heaven bound. I will look at my children and grandchildren through eyes that appreciate the moment and I will thank my mother for all the love I still feel. Mother’s Day is about mothers and I had a great one.
Comments (1)
Touche !