Even though it’s been over 40 years ago, I can still remember a plaque my younger sister, brother and I bought my mom for Mother’s Day one year, that hung in our kitchen for years that read…
“To One Who Bears The Sweetest Name
And Adds Luster To The Same
Long Life To Her
For There’s No Other
Can Take The Place Of
My Dear Mother”
It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen that plaque but I’ve never forgot that poem.
One definition of mother I read is “A woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.” That’s the noun. The verb though reads, “Bring up (a child) with care and affection.”
I personally like the verb definition because I’ve known a lot of people, men and women, who haven’t necessarily given birth to a child but have raised him/her as if they had. We’ve all heard that “being a mom is the hardest job in the world but the most rewarding.” It is hard. It’s not just the time and effort you put in, the sleepless nights when they are babies, the tantrums that go along with the ‘terrible twos,’ the running them back and forth to activities, homework, driving lessons, the teenage years, etc., but also knowing that you are shaping that person’s life. And oh, the guilt sometimes! Should I have done this rather than that, could I have done this better? The pain you feel when your child gets hurt physically or emotionally. Wishing we could provide more sometimes, wanting the best for them. My son will be 25 soon and I swear, sometimes I ‘worry’ more about him now than when he was younger and I could ‘control’ his environment and keep him safe. Being a mother is a job that lasts your entire life, there’s no retirement.
I feel blessed and very fortunate that I was able to bear a child and raise him. When my son was 14, we lost his dad to cancer so I know what it’s like to sometimes have to play both roles of mom/dad. There’s a lot of single parents out there that have to be both, which can really, really be difficult.
I am thrilled that my son and I are as close as we are. That we not only love each other but actually like one another. We can go to lunch and talk about anything and everything. He’s smart, personable, has a good heart, cares about our world and others. He’s funny, polite, treats women with respect (and others), and if possible, I love him even more than when he was born.
My own mom died in 2001 at the age of 53, a year older than I am now (from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.) I miss her all the time. There are still times I wish I could pick up the phone and just talk to her. I think the one thing that makes me saddest about my mom dying so young is the fact she didn’t get to see all her grandchildren grow up and I’m sorry that they didn’t get to have her in their lives for longer. But for the time they did have ‘nana’ in their lives, well, she was as good a grandma as she was a mom. And she was loved greatly. Mom, I miss you!
So, to all you “mothers” out there, who have raised or are raising a child…
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
This picture is obviously from the 80’s! Mom was 40 and I’m 26. .