Mother's Day...a reflection on "Motherhood."

I was driving to Choir practice yesterday, braking and crawling along with traffic and enjoying the freedom to let my mind wander as I didn't have a three year old in the car pointing out every bulldozer and airplane we passed, needing me to acknowledge every discovery his little mind found, and I knew I wanted to write a special post about Mother's Day and what it meant etc. but I wasn't exactly sure what I would write.

Mother's day has always been such a simple holiday to me growing up. I bought my mother a card, we went to breakfast at the American Diner on El Camino, and then finished up the day doing whatever she wanted. Sometimes it was attending the Stanford University Pow Wow (Which is what I want to do this year.) and sometimes it was hiking, or watching Disney movies together on the couch. Whatever it was that she wanted, we did it because that's what you do on Mother's day. Right? It wasn't until I became a mother, responsible every day for the life and then lives of my children, around the clock, 24/7, 365 days of the year that I grew to adore the idea of Mother's Day. Do I think its a holiday taken over by the Hallmark company to sell greeting cards? Maybe a little...but the idea at it's core is beautiful. Honor the woman who loved you, changed your poopie diapers, wiped your nose, nagged at you to clean up your room, breathed down your neck in high school about tests and grades, and who enforced curfew way longer than any other of your friend's parents. Honor her and love her one special day a year (or more if you like) because it's nice to do for the lady who got out of bed 30 times a night when you had a nose cold and couldn't sleep.

Thinking of all that, and how beautiful Mother's Day is, also let my heart and mind rest in the moment with all of the women who suffer from infertility, and who LONG to celebrate this "holiday" with their own families. I have a close friend who says even though she has children through other means than her bearing them, the holiday still stings and is a reminder of how much pain is involved with infertility. I am constantly brought back to thoughts of my IM. Especially on a day like this sunday when mothers will be honored for all that they do...and I am thrilled that this will be the last Mother's Day she spends without a child in her arms. Her daughter is here! On this earth with a beating heart...she is just preparing herself to unite with her mommy for the first time.

While on that drive to choir yesterday, a song came on the radio in the midst of my blog brainstorming and it caught me so off guard that I sat at the intersection of 237 and Mathilda bawling my eyes out. The song is a love song...but when you listen to it from the perspective of a mother singing to the daughter she has waited for....it really just gets you right in the "feels" as the internet would say.  Here is the song... A Thousand Years by Christina Perri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtOvBOTyX00

Happy Mother's Day...to all the women who are mothers, long to be mothers, or who are happy as they are celebrating their own mothers. This is a beautiful celebration of womanhood and each other and all the sacrifices we make.