I’ve written many blogs about Mother’s Day, my mom, being a mom. There are lots of
inspiring and uplifting stories out there about motherhood, and for the most part they are
all true. Being a mother is kind of like writing for me. You start off all immersed in your story
and the fairy tale of where it will take you. Then you realize you birthed a big mess, it’s young,
it vomits, it eats, and it needs your attention. Some days you will want to run for cover. Then as
you nurture it, it starts to become its own being. You mold it and revise it until it’s finished.
Although your story is never really finished, at some point you have to let it go out into the
world. Just like your children… or someone else’s children that you mother, or your pets that
you mother, or even your spouses that you have to mother sometimes.
There’s the stuff along the way that no one told you about before you become a mother, the
late nights, the times they throw up on you, the hurts you have to heal, the heartaches you
have to help them find a way through, and, of course, the tantrums (those are just from your
spouse.) No really being a mother is special, because they also give you love back. And when
you look into their eyes, they squeeze you tight, and tell you they love you or they show you,
(humans and other children), it makes it all worthwhile. I don’t mean you have to give birth to
whoever you’re mothering either to be counted as a mother. There are other mothers than the
ones who birthed you, ones who lift you up along the way, ones that help you, ones that love
you. The pet mothers who give back unconditional love to their pet babies. And there are the
mothers you didn’t even know you had until they showed up for you one day to love you, too.
So being a mother is not about the giving birth, it’s about the showing up. The hard, gritty,
nasty, butt-in-the-chair showing up every single day for whatever and whoever you are
mothering. I had the great luck of having wonderful mothers along the way and I hope you do,
too. Write the best story you can for those children, hold their hands, wipe their tears (and your
own), love them, just like you do the characters you write. And when it’s time, let them go, let
them soar out into the world and make their own place. I love being a mother.
