Happy Mothers Day

Mothers Day was the invention of a card company or a flower company or a telephone company to make money. A business decision and a good one. Now it’s even expanded beyond the 24-hour celebration to be a weekend thing that starts sometime on Friday really and expands to midnight on Sunday so that other companies can take advantage of the Mothers Day free for all spending spree. Even the weeks leading up to it are a frenzy of Mothers Day spending activities as we try to show our love for mothers with “things”.

However, to a large percentage of the world’s population, we know that Mothers Day is every single day from the time we set our heart upon that little human until our death. Even then I think we carry on in a different way.

Being a mother starts with loving too fiercely and too tightly but all with the best intentions of loving someone through life, and then slowly letting the other person become their own and then letting go. But never fully letting go with our heart or our love, no matter what. That’s motherhood. That can’t be just a one-day thing, or a one weekend thing. Mothers know this. But we’ll take a special day, make the companies rich, accept the gifts, just to ease the minds of our loved ones.

There’s a tiered system to motherhood, as well. I got to the grandmother level a few years ago and boy am I learning lots. Now I get to love somebody through loving somebody through life. Its like a favourite cake with icing all the time.

No matter what tier of motherhood I’m in, I’m still part of the village where one mother can rightly have the expectation for another mother or mother by proxy to help her love fiercely when she thinks she can’t love enough – to enfold her when she stumbles, to enfold her entire family, and to love them all through circling, and comforting, and guiding and again always with the best intentions.

Being human, sometimes mothers stray the course because it is long and hard and sometimes unforgiving. It’s a journey that she undertakes with fear but always with love to do the best she can. Sometimes that means letting go early and letting the village love.

A mother knows there is no right way to be a mother. There is only the right love.

For those who are just starting the journey, you have a village. Take advantage of the village, they’ll do right by you. You are not alone. You are not on a path that nobody has trod before. You are a mom! You have a village of moms to accompany you even when you might think its just you. Reach out early. Most importantly, trust yourself.

Not everyone chooses this path. Not everyone wants this path. Not everyone is up for the challenge of this motherhood path. Not everyone has the same opportunities or ways to get on this path or may have been on the traditional path for mere minutes. So, be kind with your words not only this weekend but every single day.

Motherhood is about doing the best you can even when love is all you have. Sometimes it is loving downward, upward, and sideways all the same time. Sometimes it’s through strands and tethers of hope and worry. That is what makes a mother a MOTHER.

I’m going to join the Mothers’ Day weekend bandwagon and say “Happy Mothers’ Day” especially to the ones I love the deepest and those who call me Mom, and my whole family of Moms who made me an Auntie and great-Auntie (or mothers by proxy).

This year, I’m going to try to be a better village as my own mother did before me.