I Am a Mom

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was very sure she never, ever wanted to be a mother. She was the oldest of five children and everyday she watched her mother devote her life to her and her siblings. She saw her mother frazzled and stressed and overwhelmed. She saw her always overworked and under-appreciated. Always busy and rushing. "That's not for me," she thought. "I want to be free." 

Then one day, after she had left her mother's house, the girl found herself with a child of her own. "This is the end of my life," she thought. "Now I'll spend the rest of my days burdened and fettered like my mother." But nothing was as she expected. Because her daughter's hair was like the light of the sun and her eyes were like the blue of the sky and her smile was like a fresh wind and her laugh was like the song of the world.

Luthien Tinuviel

And suddenly the girl could no longer imagine a world without her daughter. Years passed and there were other children. A boy was born and then another girl in quick succession. And life was not very easy.

Maedhros James and Fiona Rose

And though she loved her three children more than she could say she knew she didn't want another. "This is it," thought the girl. "No more, or I will be spent." Time passed and the girl learned that soon she would have another child. The months before the fourth child came were dark months. The girl felt sure she would not survive this time, that finally her self would be drowned out by the necessities of motherhood. But the child came anyway and he was as perfect as an untouched field of snow, as sweet as a spring rain, as beautiful as a summer sunrise.

Corwin Benedict

  She found that the depths of love she had thought tapped out were, in fact, deeper than the widest ocean. And then she realized that her love for her children could never be used up for it was continually renewed by her children themselves. For though she did not feel that she deserved it, they loved her wholly and unconditionally and forever.

It was only then that she came to appreciate the gifts her own mother had given her. And she knew as she watched her own mother share her love with her grandchildren, that though motherhood is difficult and wearying it is also its own reward which never ceases to give back.

My mother and father with their grandchildren. (The one on the left is my nephew.)

Happy Mother's Day!