I am "Mom"

Some of my youngest and best memories I have involve my mother. The fartherest I can go back in my memory, the first thing I can remember about myself is of my older brother and me playing in a sand box in the back yard of what was then our home, probably our first home in Tipton Indiana. We had a pail and a big plastic ball. Our mother called us into the house for lunch. I don't remember what the inside of the house was like, or what we had for lunch, but I remember the incident.
By the time I was in high school, my mom was my best friend and confidant. She always had something useful to say to a girl who didn't have much self esteem back then. I would go to her in tears because of some unkind person at school, and she would tell me not to take it to heart. She kept me on a pretty steady course and got me through adolescence. Barely!

Anyway, now I am "Mom". I have three great kids (two have spouses now.) I remember vividly when they were born, the thrill of every little new thing they learned to do. I remember sitting on a winter afternoon with one on my lap and two close beside me on the couch as I read books to them. We passed many winter days like that. (And summer, oh, and all the seasons!) I remember, too, loving them so much that sometimes I thought that love would just smother me to death. My mom always used to tell me that I would not understand how much she loved us kids until I had my own. If I had known how much she loved me, I know I would have appreciated her more back then.

You know, there are just some things that you really don't learn about your mom until you become "Mom" yourself. Like, remember when your mom would clean up after you when you had "been sick".  (Well, maybe your mom made you clean it up, but my mom cleaned up after me, at least while I was little.) I remember when I was an elementary school student a classmate vomited all over his desk. It was all I could do not to vomit too. How was our mom able to clean up vomit? When I became "Mom", I learned. You can do anything for your kids.

When I left for college, I drove myself away. Mom was in the kitchen and she wouldn't even say goodbye to me. I thought she was just mad; both she and dad were really not in favor of my going to school. I have since discovered how very much it hurts when your children leave to go and make a life for themselves. I am not ashamed to admit that I wept openly when each one of my little birds flew away from the nest. I have learned that it is best for my psyche to mark the changes of life by expressing the emotion that fits. I rejoice loudly when the occasion calls for it. I allow myself to mourn deeply when the occasion calls for it.

Because I am Mom, I know what it is to be the kisser of hurt knees, the guidance counselor, the judge of what is fair, nurse to the sick, sacrificer of self, birthday party planner, pet undertaker, the patient teacher, (and sometimes, the not so patient, eh?)
Never perfect in any of these endeavors, and filled with regret some days, but still, I benefit from the many joys that have been mine, because I am Mom. So here is to all Moms, everywhere, still four months away from "Mother's Day", because we all deserve it. And to my Mom, I love you!