Mother's Day 2015

This week, I've read a lot of blogs and commentaries bemoaning Mother's Day.  Many of the writers complained about the sadness of the holiday due to lost children, incomplete pregnancies, and fertility issues. While I have not personally experienced the depths of their pain, I can understand this much. Mother's Day and all the hoopla surrounding it comes once a year.  You can't stop it, but you can work with your reaction to it.  Do not expect churches to be "compassionate" to you and not recognize mothers on that day. They will.  And this year, when Fr. James called all the mothers to the center aisle for a special blessing, I went with them.  Although I have never conceived, borne, or lost a child, I, too, am a mother.

I am a mother to my dog, Trixie, (and before her my dog, Lucy).  I am responsible to feed her, exercise her, keep her healthy, and mostly to love her.  I love my little companion.  I call her my baby and I am her Mommy.

I am a mother to my Godchild, Sarah.  I was an active part of her life as she grew up, but now that she is married I don't see her as much.  She is always in my prayers, and that is what a Godmother does.  She knows I will be there when she needs me.

I was a mother to many of my students.  So many of them came from lonely homes, and I was there in school to build them up and care about them.  In fact, every now and then, I'd have an angry parent tell me she was sick of her kid always talking about me and would I back off.  Many of them came to me with personal crises, and they trusted me enough to let me pass them on to the person who could do more to help them than just listen. I paid for lunches. I bought clothing. I loved them.

And I continue to love and care about my former students.  Right now, I am mothering one lonely soul who literally has no one in this world.  All he asks of me is to listen. To care.  I have found jobs for him to do at my house so I can pay him because he will not take money from me any other way. With my friend Nadine, we are working to get him some stability in his life.

I mother my siblings.  My sister knows that she can come to me for anything, and I will help.  With our brother's current illness, he needs me in a way that a mother is needed.  I sat with him all day every day that he was in the hospital.  I put cold compresses on his forehead.  I fed him ice chips when the nurses told him no gulping water. I did whatever he wanted so he wouldn't have to wait for an overextended nurse.  I am the eldest sibling.  I remember when Mom passed away thinking, I am the adult now.

I mother my nieces.  I was with Helen when she adopted them in China.  I call them my children that I keep at my sister's house.  I have never loved two people more in my life.  I have paid for private school, and I'm saving for college.  I take them to horse camp, shopping, to the pool, the movies, and out to dinner.  In November I am taking the family on a cruise.  That is something my Mother would have done had she lived a little longer.  So, I'm doing it for her.

So yes, I stepped into the center aisle at church and claimed my blessing.  For I, too, am a mother.