Mother's Day

I find Mother's Day a bit of a conundrum. I always enjoyed it growing up. It was nice to give mom flowers, cards, pictures we drew and had to describe for her to see anything... I have always appreciated being appreciated and feel that I'm not alone. Having a special day for certain people to be recognized for all they do is such a nice way to help those of us who might otherwise continue to procrastinate letting people know how much they mean to us.

There will never be words to express the gratitude to the women in my life whom I call Mom; my own mother who raised me and gave so much of her time, talents and energies to help me learn and grow and show she loved me; my mother-in-law who spent the last two months raising my three oldest children and enabling me to continue my pregnancy with Timothy for as long as possible. On top of that, she made flower girl dresses for Callie and Trevlyn at the same time. Both of my moms are amazing women, women of incredible talent and intellectual wisdom, abounding love and an ever-listening ear. They each possess many qualities that impress me and are worthy of every attempt at emulation.

To you both, a very happy Mother's Day. I love you so much! Thank you for all you have done for me and for our family and all you continue to do!

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I have not always enjoyed Mother's Day. My first miscarriage was in April 2002. Mother's Day is always the beginning of May so the sadness was still a little raw. Having children ask why I got a rose for Mother's Day when I didn't have any children was a little hard to hear.

Following that Mother's Day, another two years passed in which I wanted nothing more than to become a "mother". Finally, in 2005, we thought that dream was finally to be realized and were beyond ecstatic to find out in January that we were expecting. Alas, what started out as joy turned rapidly to one of the greatest sorrows I have ever experienced as that pregnancy also ended in miscarriage in March 2005. I would have given anything to cancel Mother's Day that year. I had never before thought much regarding or really could have understood the sorrow that comes from wanting to bear children and being denied that most wondrous of dreams. I believe it's innate in every woman's heart to hold their own offspring in their arms - to have a sweet little being so totally yours - yours to love, yours to teach, yours to cherish, yours to take care of - and to have that dream dashed is heartache unequaled by much else.

Our two losses to me were like being offered the final piece of the puzzle we had worked so hard to put together, getting it almost in place and then having it ripped out, taking other pieces with it.

To those women now in that position, I extend my love and prayers for peace for you. I also wish you a very happy Mother's Day and share something I recently came across.

A dear friend of mine gave me "A Tale of Two Cities" for my birthday in 2008. At the time, things were very busy and I never even had a chance to open it. However, with lots of doctors appointments followed by a rather lengthy bedrest, I had ample time to read. (For those who have never read it, it is an amazing book! Set during the French Revolution, Charles Dickens did an amazing job bringing in many characters from all walks of life and interwove them to show how the English viewed the French, the French the English, the poor the rich, the powerful the weak...)

Chapter VII illustrates the life of the French upper class through the daily life of Monseigneur. Each day required the help of at least four just to get him his chocolate and each night just carried the party into the wee hours before dawn. Some of the attendees to these parties are described and the one that stood out most to me were the women detailed thus:

"Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur - forming a goodly half of the polite company - would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world - which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of mother - there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought the up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty." (Pg. 126)

I loved that paragraph. Not to impugn the role of childbirth, but I would have to agree that the very acts of laboring and delivering are a very small part indeed of being a mother. Many women who have never borne a child are better mothers than some who have.

As the day itself is only one day of the year, bearing a child is only one part of a child's life. When compared with the hardships, trials, heartbreaks, joys, laughter and love of raising a child, the actual birth is often a very small piece indeed. When compared with the days of service, love, laughter, support and devotion, Mother's Day is also a very small piece as well.

Not to seem contradictory, but I consider myself beyond blessed to have had the opportunity to experience pregnancy and childbirth since those heartbreaks of years gone by. I enjoy not having anyone question whether or not I am a mother merely for the fact that I am parous. My mind reels at the recollection of how much I have learned and grown over these years of trying to gain and maintain a pregnancy, carrying my first child, carrying twins and having them born by VBAC (vaginal birth after a cesarean) and now having been able to carry and birth a preemie after having my membranes rupture at 21 weeks.

I was asked at least a few times how my Mother's Day was - it was fine. I've discussed a little in the previous post. And then came the question that inevitably follows: what did James do for me for Mother's Day. The day of - he put a single red rose in a vase on the table. Breakfast in bed? No. Chocolates? No. Jewelry? No.

One might think my husband either completely unromantic, thoughtless, uncreative or even heartless. As for me, he's the most thoughtful, considerate and loving man I could ever have asked for. Although the actual day might have lacked any of the outward sentiments, the months preceding the day said it all. The single rose came from the bush he planted for me in our backyard the weekend my water broke. The breakfast in bed came brought by sweet 3-year-old hands on more than one occasion while I was on bedrest. Not only was my breakfast made, but that of our other three children as well. They were also bathed, dressed and entertained by their dad. Chocolate came in the form of cases of nutritional shakes. I was quite nauseated by the antibiotics I was given after my water broke and tend to lose my appetite during pregnancy anyway and James knows that I love chocolate shakes and stocked the pantry as soon as he could after I started feeling sick with the antibiotics. And I really don't need new jewelry. The sparkly on my left hand is all I need to remind me of my knight in shining armor.

So on the day that we set aside to celebrate mothers, I celebrate my husband for the wonderful father he is, the amazing man he is, my perfect husband. Again there aren't words to express my love and appreciation for him, but I marvel at all he does and love him all the more every day.