Mother's Day

I have been pondering this post for days now. I honestly still have no idea what to write. This topic is close to my heart in such a painfully intimate way.
When does a woman become a mother? This woman who is just like any other woman, walking around, doing her usual activities suddenly becomes the center of a person's universe, or she suddenly has someone else at the center of hers, or both. It can shift everything about the woman. It is earth shifting in a tiny, focused, huge way.
But when does it happen? Does it happen when egg meets sperm? Does it happen at the first roll or jab of infant in womb? Does it happen at first breath, first tiny cry? Does it happen the first time a child utters "mama"? Or the first "I love you"? Does it happen at the bang of a judge's gavel declaring it so? Does it happen with an exchange of rings? I can't answer this question. Becoming a mother can happen in so many different ways! I have become a mother in all of the above ways with the exception of the judge's gavel.
I first became a mother when a beautiful golden haired angel twirled me around her tiny pinkie finger. She cemented it I think the moment she took my face in her hands and told me “You’re a good Mama Karen.” I gained some legal title of (step) mother when her daddy put a ring on my finger but she and I know that our bond was forged long before that day. I became a mother again a few years later when a tiny, tiny person took hold deep in my body as happens everyday for all time. This person and I never met but he or she made me a mother in their own way. His/her sibling joined the first about a year later. I became a mother in yet another way with the grasp on my heart and body of yet another tiniest of persons. He grew and thrived, though. And with each new milestone-that first popcorn flip, that first jab of hand or elbow, that first rolling motion, that first pushing me away when I smooshed him from the outside-he more firmly grasped my heart. With every moment of his life, I am more a mother and more forever his. I was the center of his world for so long-maybe I still am. He has been the only baby in the world for 2.5 years. Every moment has new meaning because I am this little person’s mother. Even now, I know that my words will fall so short of telling you how he has changed everything.
But I feel like I’m leaving something out even still. Because I don’t know how to express that for 2 years before my son ever came into being in any manner, I was a mother. My daughter made me a mother in my heart even before that but my angel babies made me a physical mother somehow. And as I think about the incredible joys that only my son has brought me, I can’t help but remember that dark time. The times when I thought no pain could be as soul-wrenching and gut clenching as that. The times when I knew in my deepest heart that I would never know the joys I live now, that I would never hold a child of my own flesh. And the reason I never will forget that time and never can is because I know so many women hurt in this way still. My heart aches for every woman who has seen a double line and then no heartbeat, for every woman who has taken a blood test to find her body no longer registers as clinically pregnant, for every woman who has experienced the pain of labor and pushed a dead infant from her body, for every woman who has watched her child take their first and then last breath, for every woman who has walked into a fertility clinic, for every woman who has not had the money to walk into that clinic, for every shot or pill taken, for every ultrasound without a happy ending. Infertility in its many forms robs women of motherhood’s joys and I want to say that these women are still mothers. If you know a woman struggling with infertility (and I include miscarriages and stillbirths as well as secondary infertility in that definition), please in some way remember they are a mother, especially on Mother’s Day. It may make her cry but even a simple note or flower or “happy Mother’s Day” may make her feel less invisible.
I can’t make it a downer post, though. While my heart aches for those unfulfilled mothers, my heart swells with joy and just knowing I am so blessed. Because I am a mother but I also have mothers. And I have THE best.
My mom is incredible. She has the voice of the sweetest angel, she cooks the best Southern comfort food and guilt inducing food, she keeps a beautiful home even when she’s so busy she has to schedule time to breathe, she paints and draws pieces worthy of display in a museum, she is brave, she is ambitious, she is stubborn (this is a good thing, I promise), she is hard working, she is loving. She has been through hard times and beautiful times and I am so thankful she is enjoying life now. When I think about my relationship with my mom I think of homemade playdough, of mopping the floor just because I loved to do what she was doing, I think of cheerleading and mission group, I think of A&P flashcards and cooking dinner on my own. My mom and I have been through a lot together. I feel I have a bond with her unique to just me and her because she was home with me while my siblings were at school (I am much younger) and because she and I had to make it on our own for a while after my biological dad left. Some of those memories are so bittersweet they make my heart cry but at the same time draw me closer to my sweet mother. I love to watch her now with my son. She has delighted in his every moment and I feel such kinship with her watching her love him almost as much as I do (hey, I AM his mom) and knowing that she was in my shoes my lifetime earlier.
My mom’s mom is another mother I have…a grandmother. And Sunday is a day to celebrate her as well. My grandmother is in some ways now only half a person. She enjoyed nearly 61 years tethered to one of the greatest men who has ever lived and she is learning how to survive without him. I am proud of her for doing as well as she is. I love her dearly. She can show me a world I can only imagine or read about because she lived in it. She is a link to my past, to my history. She dotes on my babies and I feel such a warmth just to sit with her and hold her hand. I feel honored to live in the home she shared with my grandfather for half of their married life. I feel their love and their joy and their legacy each time I walk through my own living room.
When I got married, I became a legal mother of sorts to my sweet daughter but also I gained another mother. I have the world’s best mother-in-law. She is kind and nurturing. She is the personification of a warm hug. But she is also real. She has never been afraid to cry. I have seen her hurt so deeply and I have seen her claw her way out of a pit into the sunlight. I am so proud of how far she has come in the time I have known her. She is meeting herself again in so many ways and finding blessings in it. She has blessed me in ways she doesn’t even know. She also raised this man to whom I am joined and she taught him to treasure me and my children. I am so grateful for her.
For not being sure of what to write, I realize I became wordy! I mostly wanted to give this post as a gift to my mothers in my life and maybe someday to my children. I also hope that those mothers and those who have mothers who read this will think on it and find joy and gratitude. Please let your mother or a mother figure know you appreciate them this weekend. Please hug a mother-even if she is only a mother in her heart, especially if she is a mother only in her heart. We are so blessed to have this relationship of motherhood…both to give and to receive. Happy Mother’s Day!