By VERNA BROCK
This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I have been thinking about what motherhood means in all of its iterations. After all, every last one of us has a mom. Many of us ARE mothers. There are countless other women who have taken on the nurturing role of motherhood in one way or another. I realize not all mothers are created equal, but for the most part “mamas” do their best to rear their children to be happy and well-adjusted people. Most people I know claim to have the world’s best mom.
I lost my mother almost 5 years ago, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. And yes, my brother and I DID have the best mom in the world, at least for us. A couple of years ago I wrote a poem about Mothers and their day, and I decided to share it with all of you:
Mother’s Day
We come into this world, helpless and cold,
Warmed by our mother’s embrace,
Spending the rest of our lives straining against her, and
Needing her every moment.
How strange to be a motherless child now, at nearly seventy,
Always knowing she was there, even at a distance,
Accessible, available,
Now gone, impossibly, irretrievably erased, out of reach.
I never missed her then,
No matter the miles between us,
She was there, always there, on call,
At the ready to share recipes, jokes, advice, life.
Who was she before me?
Young, laughing, beautiful, smart, playful,
She always worked to hide herself from her children,
Labored to be who she needed to be, but maybe,
Not who she was.
I miss her now, dream of her, long for her,
Just one more story, one more memory,
Even reproach and nagging would be welcomed.
And I wonder who I will be to my children,
How much will they know of my mother,
Her true self,
And how much will they know of me,
And my true self?
Take some time this weekend to treasure the moments of motherhood wherever and however you find them. Happy Mother’s Day!