Motherhood.
The word evokes emotion from every single person.
Weather you were raised by your birth mother, an adoptive mother, a grandmother, an aunt, a sister, a foster mother, it all started with – that’s right – your mother. You were given birth by your mother. Where it went from there, is as vastly different and exciting as each one of us are.
As for me, I was raised by an amazing mother. She was kind to a fault, giving, selfless, compassionate, fun loving, and my heroine. I knew from when I can remember remembering, that I was loved, wanted, adored, cherished and bathed in praise, acceptance, and encouragement…I was beyond blessed to call her my mama.
She had a humble beginning, born into not much of anything, but to parents who loved her. After meeting my daddy in Kansas where he was stationed with the Army before leaving for Europe during WW2, they fell instantly in love, and he asked her to wait for him until he returned from war. She did. As he was returning on the Queen Mary to America in 1945, she boarded a troop train from Kansas to Georgia to meet him and get married – all without ever meeting his family. They were married in a tiny town in Georgia, where they spent the first few years of their lives together, but soon moved to Kansas. That’s where I entered the picture.
I was placed in the arms of this most amazing couple by a God who knew exactly where I belonged. You see, someone else had “given physical birth” to me, but my mama was waiting anxiously for me to arrive in her arms. And oh what arms they were! She was devoted to me and her family. We were always first, she was always last. We had, she went without. New dress for Easter – yup, I had one. She didn’t. I am thankful that my daddy did very well for himself in the years after that which afforded he and my mother a great life. They retired early, moved to the lake, toured in a motor home. He never said a cross word to her in his life. He showered her with love and affection and she didn’t do without much she ever wanted. They were blessed.
But it was I who was most blessed. Because from her, and them, I learned what a healthy, loving family was. And what a privilege and honor it was to be a mama. Not everyone, I realize is so blessed as I.
All of this brings us to me. I am a mama. My two beautiful children, a son and a daughter, are the joy of my life! They have brought me my mama’s share of a full range of emotion – love, excitement, joy, pride, worry, heartache, relief, and most importantly, the assurance that I will be with them always in Heaven someday! Little did I know that being a mama – as amazing as it is – was a precursor to being Grandmama – a Mama on Steroids!!!
Grandmotherhood, if you have not arrived there yet – is a joy untold!!! And if you have arrived there, then you know exactly what I am saying. You cannot imagine a world where you have more love to give than you already give to your own children – but the minute your baby has a baby – well just get out the kleenexes and prepare to cry a river!!!
It is a whole new world. A new life, in which you get the honor and joy of sharing so many of those precious moments again. You likely see your baby in their baby….and oh the heart just bursts!!!
We revere athletes for throwing a ball around, political figures for, well I guess for just being what we think is important, high powered businessmen and women because of their business talents. But we too little revere the most important person in our lives, the one without whom we would not even be here – our mothers. Mother’s go humbly about their days doing exactly what we have all done, work ourselves to the bone, stay up all night with sick babies, throw endless birthday parties, carpool to every sporting, music, cheerleading, etc. event imaginable, take untold number of visits to the doctor, clean up food, puke, pee and poo off of every conceivable surface known to man, all on less sleep than we ever imagined possible…….many times without ever a thank you, and most certainly without the national accolades afforded so many other “jobs”.
But every mother know a secret. There is no amount of money or praise that could possibly be lavished on us that means more to us than looking into the eyes of that precious child at the end of a day for one more hug, one more kiss, or one more “I love you mama”….no matter how old they are….
Happy Mother’s Day…..
