Mother’s Day is a totally bittersweet day for me. I love
being a mother and I love the sweet things my boy does for me to show me I’m
special to him. But I no longer have the opportunity to tell the woman who is
my mother how much I love her, respect her, and honor her. The week leading up
to Mother’s Day Sunday has been a difficult week for me these past five years
(how is it possible that this is the 5th year I’ve had to take a
bouquet of daisies to the cemetery?). I hear friends talking about “having” to
go shopping for mother’s day gifts. Don’t
they know how unbelievably lucky they are to have a mom they can call to chat
with, meet for lunch, and whine about? I’d give a lot to have the chance to
hear my mom say “love you sweetie” or to be best friends with her as an adult. Maybe I’m jealous of the people who still have
their moms in their lives. Maybe I’m just sad or mad and think it’s not fair.
Regardless of how I feel today about my mom not being with
us anymore, I know I’m unbelievably blessed to have learned how to be a mom
from one of the best. She was kind, generous, thoughtful, compassionate,
forgiving, and honorable. She knew when she needed to be strict and when she
could let us break a rule. I learned from her how to recognize that as a
parent, sometimes you pick your battles and you have to decide which battles
are worth winning. She knew how to make us respect her and how to make us
realize that the worst punishment in the world was seeing disappointment on her
face. I might be 35 years old now, but I sometimes still think to myself “Oh
man what would mom think?” I learned from her how to sit down and talk to my
own child instead of always just saying “Because I said so.” I learned from her
how to talk to my child so that he understands and respects my authority (most
of the time anyway lol). She knew which times needed “Just wait until your
father gets home and I tell him what you’ve done” and which times needed “Just
don’t tell your father.” She knew we knew she hid the chocolate and she knew
eventually we’d find her hiding spot and she’d have to find another one. I
learned from her that the best hiding spots are NEVER in the kitchen!
Today, I’m so amazed at how she managed to be the mom to
each of us that we each needed her to be. I’ll never know how she did it with
five of us! I was only blessed with one child and for those who have known me
long enough, they know what a miracle and blessing he was to finally come along
after too much heartache. I love him…I absolutely love him with every piece of
my being. He is the best part of me and I live for the moments when I can see
on his face that I’m doing a good job raising him. There have been so many
moments since he came into my life that I truly think to myself in utter amazement
that “WOW I’m a mom to this amazing little person” and I worry that I’m doing
it right. I can’t imagine the stress she went through wondering about how she
was doing raising five children!
I’ll never forget this one day when he was about ten months
old and he was sick..so sick…had been throwing up for days. We’d been to the ER
several times already over a three day period. I had cleaned up so many messes,
had used a medicine dropper for hours to get Pedialyte down his throat, and was
so tired and I felt that lurching across my arms as I held him, just praying
that those few ounces of liquid weren’t coming back up again. I remember
calling my mom and crying “I just figured it out…I’m really a mom…this isn’t
babysitting” and she wanted to know how I figured that one out. I just laughed
and cried and said “because I let him puke in my hand so I wouldn’t have to
clean it up again.” She laughed so hard I thought she was crying on the other
end of the phone. It’s crazy how that one absolutely disgusting moment in a
terrifying week of parenthood sticks out to me so vividly.
As my child gets older and more mature, I relish the moments
that make me so proud to be his mom: the sound of his laughter, his hard work
and dedication to the things he loves to do, and the things he says! Sometimes
he says the most profound things…things you’d never expect a 9 year old to be
aware of or to acknowledge. One of those
proud mama moments came a few weeks ago while sitting in the waiting room
listening to him during trumpet lessons. He was making the most awful
screeching sounds and it was the same sound over and over and over again. Just
when I started thinking “what were we thinking, trumpet lessons?!” I heard a
note that sounded like a real note and then I heard him say “YES THERE IT IS!”
I know I had a huge smile on my face because I could hear how hard he was
trying and trying and then the sense of accomplishment in his voice. I see the
smile on his face when he’s standing on stage getting scout awards and he
immediately looks to me in the crowd and smiles. I watch him at karate and see
how dedicated and hard he works to get a new skill and I love the look on his
face when he sees me get there early enough to watch him. I love that he still
wants to race me to see who can say ‘good night sleep tight don’t let the
bedbugs bite’ every night at bedtime the fastest. I love that we have great
conversation and that he tells me about his day every afternoon.
Loving my child is the best gift I can imagine on Mother’s
Day. And I know that by loving him and helping him grow into an amazing young man,
I honor my own mother. I hope I’m at
least half the mom she was and always will be in my heart.
