On Motherhood

My dear family gave me such a lovely Mother’s Day yesterday.

We started with Mass, and to our delight and surprise, the Bishop was here concelebrating. Wonderful! He was in town for the Sacrament of Confirmation Saturday night and stayed to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost yesterday. We don’t usually ever get a chance to see any of our Bishops (outside of Mass for Confirmation), so this was a huge treat.

After Mass, Hub made the most wonderful home-cooked breakfast. Thick-cut bacon, eggs over easy (very yummy, although not dippable ; ) and gluten-free pancakes. Everything done to perfection–I felt bad for everyone around our hotel room, with the smell of bacon wafting through the halls on a Sunday morning. The pancakes were so good, though! We loved them so much that it inspired a new recipe that I’m going to have to save for when we either write the cookbook or open the B&B. Super-secret surprise! (sorry Emily!) I drive my friend nuts with my super-secret recipes…

As soon as dishes were cleaned up and we had a little rest, we piled in the car and pointed it towards Civilization. We went to the storage shed and picked up the business boxes that have been in storage for nearly two weeks. It was so good to bust them out of storage jail! I love my business and can’t wait to get going here in California (Friday we’ll make a family day of going to get my new business license and all that other good stuff; it’s kind of a haul to get there, so might as well have an adventure and see something new). Then picked up some new walking shoes and a pair of sunglasses from the mall there. Batting .500: the shades are great, shoes…not so much. My entire foot is very wide (a Men’s 8.5 EEEE fits like a glove…a very scary foot!), but my heel is just too wide for the wide width Reeboks that I got. I can return them, but I’ll hang onto them for the moment, until we go back to town. I wish that there were a New Balance shoe store around here. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find one on our route this weekend! You never know.

Then last night, the weather was really nice–a bit breezy, but still great–so we hit the soccer field/running track. Firstie and Middlin did some evening PT, alternating walking and jogging and went 3/4 of a mile! A great effort, considering that we haven’t been real organized in any sort of family fitness routine. Firstie is 12 1/2, and reminds me of a 5-6 month old great dane puppy: all PAWS! He’s not as naturally athletic as his younger brothers, but he is stubborn determined, and once he puts his mind to something, doesn’t give up. Middlin is like watching fireworks on the 4th: blaze a path, fade and rest…blaze a path, fade and rest… And keep going like that until you flop into a pile of mush. He’ll be a great runner once he learns to pace himself. And not care if his older brother beats him. That last part will take some finessing of the will, for sure. Fireball? That boy just goes–perpetual motion, never tired. As the saying goes, if I could bottle that energy… : )

The sweetest part was the Mother’s Day card they made for me. Beautiful penmanship, with hearts and butterflies in purples (my favorite) and red (nice coinkydink for Pentecost, don’t you think?), and all of their names sweetly inside.

So much joy for these dear boys…but at the same time, I did find myself thinking about my children whom I haven’t met yet, Rose, Mary, Pio & Thomas. I have a lot of walls built up; the pain of miscarriage is just too great right now to even process. Since December, Hub’s returned home from Iraq; we’ve celebrated and sorrowed the discovery and loss of a new pregnancy–twice; and a cross-country move on top of that…not to mention the added stress of having to figure out why I’m not carrying these little ones. A good piece of the puzzle came last month, though, when a blood test the day before miscarrying Thomas showed progesterone levels so low that these last two babies never even had a chance to see the light of day. It’s a good place to pick this up here in California, and continue moving forward. I think once we move out of the hotel and into our permanent housing and get a little bit settled, I will feel safe to mourn their losses; for now, it’s just too much. So far, losing them exists pretty much in my head…I’m just not high enough up Maslow’s Ladder, I guess, to get any further than that.

But thinking of these littlest ones is a good reminder that Mother’s Day isn’t only for those who have given birth. It’s for all women. Whether you’ve had a baby, have adopted your children, are a spiritual mother, or have experienced the loss of your child, motherhood exists in many forms, none more important than the others. Motherhood exists as the driving component of our feminine nature; we are all mothers by nature.

And on this day of mothers, we are so fortunate to have Our Blessed Mother as our example, showing us the way, comforting our wounds, cheering us on, and loving us every moment, as only a mother can.