Skip to main content

a mother's love

baby linda kay
i never truly understood it before, because i could not.



a mother's love is one of the most special gifts in the world. to feel the love of a mother, and to feel love as a mother... i have experienced both and am so incredibly grateful for every memory and emotion that is brought on by these gifts.

my mommy came to visit last weekend. she flew in for one full day, really... and it was a visit that i will always be grateful for. she came simply to spend some time with her baby and her baby's babies. she came simply to encourage me and hug me and hold my girls and buy us lots of things...
pregnant - summer 2010

she somehow managed to cook me all my favorites before she got on the plane. in between taking care of little jonah and working at the hospital, she found the time to cook enough food to feed us for three days. she packed it all up and as i unloaded her suitcase it felt like christmas morning. of course i had ideas of cooking for her, but instead we feasted on the food that she brought - the food that i love and cherish from my childhood. how on earth she handled flying out to visit when she doesn't really get even one day out of the week for just her is beyond me. we tell her to relax more and to take some time for herself, but our whole lives it seemed that time for herself meant giving of herself.

my mother is the hardest working woman on the planet. she enjoys watching my nephew three days out of the week, and the other two days she still works as a registered nurse.  the weekends are mostly filled with either work, church, or family time... she never really stops. she has always kept going for as long as i can remember, and she has always had an unwavering faith in God and an undying commitment to her family.
with viy - feb 2012

with cai - june 2011
i know that no mother is perfect, and i am not saying that mine is. but i know that she tries her hardest.

i watched her last weekend as she held my babies in her arms and thought about how she once held me. sometimes when i am watching the girls and am so overwhelmed with love and gratitude for their lives, i think about how my mother must have felt the same way about me... and it is crazy. i was once her world just as these girls are now mine. i was her motivation for working long hours, cooking hot meals when she was so exhausted, putting up christmas lights outside in Illinois winters, hiding Easter baskets around the house on a Sunday morning before church, and spending countless hours in prayer.

when i look back on my childhood, now that i am a mother, i choose to remember the best parts. the parts that involve silly arguments, misunderstandings, unrealistic expectations - i have analyzed them and discovered the misunderstood love and selfless desire from which those conflicts sprung. you see, i am beginning to understand how firece and unrelenting a mother's love truly is.


Mother's Day - 05.13.12
i love viyah and caiah more than i could ever express.
i love every giggle and every twirl, every silly outburst, every springy curl on their head, every new phrase and clever word they string together.... i love every part of them and i love every part of them that is so clearly a part of me!

i understand the sacrifices, the long nights, the messy clothes covered in "baby stuff", the early mornings, the constant cooking and cleaning, the crazy hair, the ability to just go and go and go...
i love my mom so much more because i love my children more than my own life.

that's really what it takes to understand.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Beautiful Mama

My mama has always been beautiful. It is a beauty that is natural and effortless and is the type of beauty that filled my heart with longing when I was a child. I can recall staring at how flawless the even color of her skin was, how adorable the few freckles were on her cheeks, how symmetrical her nose was. I remember thinking how absolutely perfect she looked in a sari, her pleats folded so pristinely, and the tuck of material into her waist seamless and smooth.   I would often feel the softness of my mother’s hands. Hands that had delicate fingers that moved with precision and purpose. Hands that kneaded chapati dough and even held tight to a lawn mower. No matter what she did, her hands were always soft, always welcoming, always beautiful. But she never liked to focus on her own physical beauty. My mother’s true beauty comes from within.  I understood certain aspects of this inner beauty when I was a child. The beauty that comes from her servant’s heart and her work ethic -
Post a Comment
Read more

Fighting Perfectionism

My children are my favorite humans. They are loving, kind, creative, and funny. They have great memory for the smallest details and appreciate the littlest gestures. They respect teaching and learning in a very sincere way.  They fill my days with joy and meaningful reflection. They have so much to offer the world around them. ...And they strive for perfection. I see a battle of perfection ensuing in my house. It manifests itself in the way I correct my children over that smallest detail or make "suggestions" when they show me their creative works. I feel it in my bones when I fight the need to compare them to their relatives or even to myself at their age. This inner conflict  makes itself known when they get an answer marked incorrect and they are embarrassed (though they performed well above what was expected). But mainly, I see it in the way they simply crumble when they have had an error in judgment. When they see they have disappointed us in any way or they repeate
Post a Comment
Read more