Like most major holidays, I get reflective on the meaning of the day. I don't think that I am a particularly celebratory person by nature but holidays help with the habit of celebration. Mother's Day, however, doesn't require much reminding. The more minutes I spend being a mother propel me into thankfulness for the investment of my own mother-friend.
Mom, In the earliest moments of becoming a mother, I know I made you laugh with all of my wonder and amazement at the process of growing a human and in my frantic grasping to gain some mother skills during the first year of being Myles' mom. Here are a few of my thank you's and hopes for my own journey in light of you mom.
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| The Sibling at my wedding, 2008 |
1. I hope I can support like you. You are a quiet kind of support. Not the kind of over the top personality that makes a big to-do. Instead, you are the kind of quiet strength that makes it look like we are the strong ones, when all along it is you who are infusing us with confidence just because you show up. I pray that I will give this same power of presence to M & M as they grow into who God has created them to be.
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Pregnant me...Spring 2012
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2. I hope I can "
favorite" like you. We always give you a hard time that one of the people in the below picture is your favorite and your reply is always the same...A little bit of a laugh and some definite annoyance..."You are all my favorites in your own way." Even though this sounds like a major "mom" thing to say, it is completely believeable from you. Somehow you make all four of your kids feel like we are worth being proud of and that we contribute importantly and uniquely to the world. Thank you for loving us into that kind of particular and special security. I think your attraction of our differences helps us like ourselves without competing with each other.
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Mom and Sisters circa 2011---Sarah's Graduation party
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3. I hope I can
let-go like you. I remember the great dread that filled my heart when I looked at tiny little Myles knowing that I am only stewarding his child to adult life and then he will leave me. I don't know how a person invests all of themselves with an open heart, only to send that love out into the world to find a different center and a new home. I hope I can do it like you have done it. Your transition to mother-friend was so seamless. And maybe you were just tired because we were a heavy bunch to carry...but I think no. It was your selfless, life-work that you had dedicated to the Lord so long before you had to send us off. Thank you for modeling the let-go so well. It makes our coming back so voluntary. I want that for my littles.
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Leah's wedding---September 2011
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4. I hope I can
celebrate like you. You know each of us and try to make sure that you have all the details just right for the way we best celebrate. You know that Leah loves cherry sours and Terry is all about the sour patch kids. You make sure to get something different for my Christmas sock because candy isn't really my thing. You worry that you will get a detail wrong and not because you are worried about you. You genuinely want us to know that we were considered in every aspect of your plan. How do you do that? I hope I can have that kind of mother-love eventually. Kids deserve to feel the way you still make us feel.
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| Prayer time at my wedding |
Happy Mothers' Day Mom! Thank you for hanging with all of the high-demands that we put on you. We hope you get as much joy as you have made possible for all of us.
