The importance of being a sister mom

This morning the sun shines in through my new eastern facing picture window in the bedroom, and my son is off with his pals having a sleepover. The house is quiet and the dust particles float through rays of light and I feel pretty happy to be alive.

Usually, I spent the night before Mothers day doing drive-by lilac cutting… It is custom to fill my bathtub with Lilacs and deliver them to my mom on sunday morning.
This year the Lilacs have hardly come to bloom yet, and well… I was so tired last night I don’t even remember deciding to go to sleep.

I spent the afternoon yesterday celebrating the life of a STELLAR mom. She had seven kids and went on to open her home to all of their friends and collected quite a beautiful amass of “surrogate” children. She fed them and loved them and hosted many a sing along in her living room. She made me feel at home in her house and I was really just the friend of the friend of the blah blah blah… She was a rock and she gave so much to so many. I thought of her this morning when I woke up. Morning on mothers day must have been quite the bustle with all those kids.. I stopped at one. I know that I couldn’t handle a gaggle of children running amuck in my house all day and night. I probably would have gone stark raving mad with seven.

Sending you love in your pure realm Misty, where the saintly mothers go when they pass on from this one. You had to have been something of a saint to mom-handle that bunch and then some.

Of course there is joy and love shared and times one would never trade for another. The joy of seeing your child for the first time, or the first bike ride. Their deelish face in the morning before any lines have crossed it, and defiance sets in. Motherhood is filled with beauty and good things.

And… It is still the goddamned hardest job I have ever taken on!

There is no harder job on the planet than being a mom. I don’t care who you are and what you do, this job is harder!

People can try to say that it is a breeze, or a pleasure all the time, “My kids don’t annoy me, or stress me… Motherhood is a constant joy!!!” They all say that with clenched teeth while their nose grows off their face in true Pinocchio fashion.

We all toil and trouble over the safety and health of our babies. We get up at o’dark thirty to check on their sleep, we sacrifice our own joy, often in the place of our children’s happiness, give of our bodies, give of our time, give of our strength, give of our complete selves and it is just what you do when you make the choice to put another’s priority above your own.

Every mother has got to have a moment, scrubbing the corner of some part of the house that didn’t get clean enough the last time, or after a long day doing whatever it a mom does to keep things running, where you just want to keep crawling… out the door and down the street and into a back pack and onto the plane to southeast Asia…

But you stay. Because not only do you have no choice, but if you did, you wouldn’t make it. If the level of love you feel doesn’t outweigh the responsibility that you take on, then you should probably just keep crawling…

I remember when my mother absolutely HAD to want to keep crawling. When I look back now, from the vantage point of being a mother myself, I can recall so many times that she wanted so so so much to be able to just walk out the door and keep walking. The struggle to raise me on her own with no partner, the times she just worked and worked and still there wasn’t enough, the times I was rude and obnoxious and hateful and mean… puberty with me must have been one hell of a ride, lemme tell ya. Last night I was reminded of my support system. (One of them, I have many- and still I feel like I am paddling upstream at times). I was reminded of my mother’s support system.

The only other people who knew what she was living through, were other mothers. And they supported each other. Passed the kids from one house or the other, shared meals, shared a responsibility so great that one mother couldn’t carry alone. And without each other, there would have been nothing to share.

I have so much to share. So much to give to my mother sisters… I giggle when I watch Big Love, “Shit, I’ll take a sisterwife or two.” And then I realize that I kinda do have a bunch of them, but it is the SisterMOM part I am down with… You know who you are. We may not share our men but we share a lot.

Without you moms… I would be nothing. I know full well that I couldn’t do this!

I couldn’t be a mom without my mom. Besides carrying me in her body, and then her arms and now her heart… She holds my son the same.

Thank you mom! I am glad you didn’t know then what you do know now…