My hope for this reflection today is that no matter what life circumstances you are facing this Mother’s Day in your life as a daughter, a son, a husband, a wife, a sister, a brother, a Grandmother, Grandfather, or a caregiver hopefully you smile, possibly laugh, and reflect on our own journey. Maybe even shed a tear after the video at the end, but even if you don’t find yourself anywhere in this prayer and you’re feeling numb to this or anything in your life then God bless you, hang in there.
Keep going.
Tread softly with all the compassion you can muster. Maybe the best gift you’ll give or receive this weekend is the simple reminder that our hearts are self-healing like the rest of us when we give love because giving and receiving are one and the same.
You’re loved and never alone.
n
May 15th, 2003
Dear God,
It’s me, Nona.
First of all, thank you for all of the joys and challenges of my life. The whole kit and caboodle. I’ve been so humbled by the powers you’ve bestowed upon all of us to create the life experiences we have and to learn how to love one another.
Thank you for helping me to see above and beyond my own fears and limitations to finally recognize the existence of your handiwork in the signature of all things and I’m relieved to follow nature’s own choreography now instead of forcing my own.
Today my reflection and prayer are about Motherhood in the broader sense of the definition and not limited to the biological kind of Mother that we often associate with as portrayed in this beautiful painting, but those of us that take part in the act of mothering itself as you have offered it to us in all of its diversity. Being Foster parents, Grandparents, Adoptive parents, Activists, Saints, Feminists, Godparents, and Guardians, and inclusive of the care, keeping, and nurturing of ALL forms of life on earth.
Before I get personal, we know this day is celebrated on different days and in different ways around the world, but could you please pass on to our dearly departed Anna Jarvis who helped to establish Mother’s Day in her own Mother’s honor here in the West in 1907 a big giant thank you from all of us?
I can only imagine how her Mom felt having 11 children. Barely. I adore children, but if we’re being honest that sounds like a nightmare to me. Anna’s mother was probably so busy that she wouldn’t have had much downtime and with no indoor plumbing for any extended mental health closet or washroom visits, it’s not hard for any Mother to see how she could have been the catalyst that inspired this special commemorative day of recognition for all of our Mothers.
Please also forgive us for commercializing Anna’s Sunday school prayer, we can’t seem to help ourselves. I was sorry to read that Anna was discouraged by all of the companies that scrambled to make a quick buck on this intended sacred day with the sale of Mother’s Day cards, flowers, and chocolate and I was sad to hear that she even tried to rescind it and have people boycott it to no avail. Please pass on that although Woodrow Wilson convinced Congress to establish the special day every second Sunday in May since 1914 and in our government in Canada since 1915, rest assured most of us just get homemade cards like these from our kids.
The truth is, we like them.
They tell a story and capture every stage of life. For example, the stage where their drawings depict us with arms and legs coming directly out of our faces and then the creative way they find all kinds of “stickers” and everyday things from around the house to decorate their masterpieces.
Also, our deepest gratitude to Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose 1974 report filled our minds with the possible consideration of replacing Mother’s and Father’s Day with a “parents’ day”. Our family structures have evolved so much over the recent decades and we hope that anyone that is parenting in a multitude of ways feels observed, included, and appreciated on this and every day.
God, I’m not sure where to begin, but maybe it’s best to take some responsibility and make some amends.
I have some regrets as a Mother and I’d like to come clean.
First, please forgive me for judging all the Moms at my children’s school who made their own soaps and organic baby food while most days I was only ever able to take a shower and keep our children alive.
I’ve been reflecting this week on this whole motherhood journey and in odd moments or flashbacks from over the years, I vividly remember the days so clearly when both of our sons were born and the precious moments after, feeling so elated and content. Delirious with love. Alive with gratitude.
I can remember thinking after our firstborn… I did it.
Phew. I felt relaxed for 1.24 seconds.
Then it hit me…
HOW on EARTH are we even qualified to do this?
I can remember feeling doubtful and looking over at my husband for reassurance. He was exhausted from being up helping me all night long sitting on the chair beside my bed and he had fallen sound asleep while cradling our tightly swaddled new baby boy who was now perched very close to the edge of the cliff of air above the hard hospital floor soft spot first. The dangers had begun and we hadn’t even left the room yet. I wasn’t sure when or if I’d get a completely restful night’s sleep ever again.
I was never an anxious person before, but now it felt like I was worried about everything overnight. It was exhausting. It felt so real to me. They could choke, or what if the car seat wasn’t put in correctly, and if we’d get in an accident on the way home from the hospital not to mention air pollution, then, of course, there were the candy-luring strangers waiting in unmarked vans, the serial killers and potential terrorist threats.
To top it off, I had never even changed a diaper or babysat anyone in my life, but I was suddenly wound up like a top and being asked to turn my life upside down to care for someone else’s life when I wasn’t even very good at caring for my own. One thought that drifted through my mind as I attempted to go to the washroom for the first time that had me stupefied was HOW on God’s green earth DO WE HAVE A POPULATION problem when THIS is the entry portal for every person on the planet?
I sometimes wish that our babies came with a unique child-specific manual or even a general one to help guide us to be better parents even if it’s just tips on how to save up enough money for the therapy they’ll need when we’re finished with them.
It also struck me at around midnight that first night in the hospital how grateful I was for my own mother. I mean, REALLY grateful. I finally had a first-hand experience and a better sense of the sacrifices that came with raising a child. A helpless, trusting, innocent little life that’s totally depending on me and what goes into that for all of us to be here. It’s about so much more than the biological act of delivery it’s the selfless and continuous deliverance of love that comes with raising a healthy human being.
That flush of gratitude was an unexpected gift and has grown since then having had our whole family’s love and support to raise our boys.
I am in awe of how perfectly choreographed it is for us to come FULL circle through the ages and stages of our lives. If we ever find ourselves in the opposite position of being a caretaker ourselves we will eventually get to enjoy a big giant slice of humble pie.
It’s brilliant.
I know it’s probably different for everyone, but in my experience, the eye-rolls, the huffy judgments, peer influence, and pulling away, usually start around middle school and it feels nearly impossible as parents to do anything “right”.
My girlfriend reminded me of something heartwrenching that one of her kids said to her last year after she set a healthy limit. She was gifted with something along the lines of: “And THAAAAAAT’S why nobody likes you, Mom!”.
It seems to be a rite of passage for all parents to hear a few “I hate yous” over the years. I guess that’s par for the course, and we all know that on some level, but when we’re exhausted it still hurts our feelings to have our Souls stomped on by a child-size 5 indoor sneaker.
Driving home from the hospital after our second was born I felt complete. All the seats were filled. ( Thank goodness that the extra row of seats that folds down in the back to make our vehicles transform into 6-seaters wasn’t really a thing back then.)
People SAY we’re all doing our best. Are we God? Or is that something we say to make ourselves feel better?
I’m not sure.
I know I could have done better. I was a bit too self-absorbed at times which led to too much screen time or time spent locked up in their rooms and not enough time connecting with us. It felt like a fight to get them outside and sometimes I just craved keeping the peace. Skiing, fishing, biking, tobogganing, swimming at the cottage, playing catch, jumping on the trampoline, going to the movies, playing board games, or just lazing on the hammock in the shade on a hot summer day watching life go by are the memories I treasure the most.
I know this is about motherhood, but I’d like to just take a moment to tell you how grateful I am to have had such a good husband by my side to help me not take things so seriously, keep things in perspective and laugh more often. He’s been a great provider, supporter, and best friend. He’s given me space when I needed it and support when I asked. The permanent marker on the kitchen cupboards, the soccer practice standoffs, and even after all the sleepless nights and when our kids would go boneless and protest in public places. I know not everyone has that and so I KNOW how lucky I am. I have so much respect for single parents who somehow manage to do it all themselves.
I’ve learned so much as a mother.
Some things I never imagined I would need to know like the names of all of the dinosaurs that have walked this earth or being surprisingly familiar with most of the 905 Pokémon characters spread across eight generations. I’ve also recently learned from our son Charlie (who we nicknamed Charizard) that giving away the Pokemon collector cards when they lost interest in them was a costly mistake and I’ve been informed that one of those cards I donated is now worth about $1,000 online.
Maybe more. Doh.
Thank goodness it wasn’t this one… that recently sold for $6,000,000.
Our kids had a LOT of stuff and to be fair we all did. Most of it they only use for a season so it usually was left up to the person that kept the hand-me-downs flowing throughout our family, but even when I did my best to sift and sort each spring it felt like decades before the giant mess in our home stopped surprising me. I find it heartwarming to occasionally see one of our quickly growing young nephews cycle through some of our boys’ old things.
Gosh, it felt like years before I stopped finding tiny Lego pieces everywhere and it took even longer before my purse stopped feeling sticky. I also feel bad that with our first son, I spent hours sanitizing anything and everything he came into contact with and then I let our last child freely lick the counter’s edge at the Dollar Store checkout secretly pleased that he wasn’t knocking over carefully laid out displays or asking for candy.
I regret my inconsistencies with the boys. How I hovered over our firstborn and expected him to be perfectly well-behaved and then found myself taking our youngest son for celebratory ice cream when his kindergarten teacher came out to the hall with a delighted look on her face one day and announced: “He didn’t hit anyone today!”
I’ve also avoided telling the truth. In hindsight, it was probably wrong for me to spend so much time helping our kids search for their favorite Hallowe’en candy that I had already eaten the night before. But one thing I AM confident about though is that I have spent a lot of quality time with my kids because I once heard Reese Witherspoon say in an interview that if you aren’t yelling at your kids you’re not spending enough time with them. Check.
Thankfully the kids made it through their childhoods mostly unscathed with a broken bone or two and only a few visits to the principal’s office, but both are incredible young men. They’re kind and funny and we enjoy their company. We love to be at the cottage with them, play euchre after dinner, watch football (go Fins!), travel, go fishing, and play golf. Our eldest son is golfing with his Dad and Grandparents this very second. (I’m on the dock with our new puppy watching the ducks drift by and feeling so happy that I’m at the age and stage where I can say no thank you).
It wasn’t always like that. I have lost myself in my role as a Mom many times. I was recently listening to Dr. Hilary McBride on a podcast and I realized that I’ve done this thing to myself where I abandon myself for the people I love. To be clear, I know it’s nothing they are demanding of me, but I’m convinced on some level that my connection to them is completely dependent on me not paying attention to my own needs and focusing on theirs first. I’ve stayed up late to help with a school project, planned birthdays for their entire class, given them lifts in the middle of the night home from parties, helped them move… anything to help make their lives better and for them to feel loved and cared for, and often at the expense of my well-being.
Tell me, is that codependent, or is that love and service?
It seems so complicated to get things right, or maybe I made it that way. I pray to please be shown how to care for others and not lose myself in the process.
Looking back, I may have enabled our children a bit too much by doing things for them that they could have done themselves. I sometimes secretly wondered if maybe my husband Scott was my first cousin after watching my kids as young adults try to change their duvet covers on their beds and load the dishwasher, but thankfully Ancestry DNA confirmed that it was just the training issue that I suspected. I take 100% responsibility for that one. I recently saw Michelle Obama post something on her IG that it was because her Mom believed in her and trusted her that she had the confidence to do things others her age didn’t. For example, she started walking to school by herself when she was 5 and I drove mine to theirs until they were 18.
Enough said.
It may not always seem this way when we are running on torturously small amounts of sleep and we’re frazzled, but we mean well and we love our children in the deepest way possible however that looks. And all joking aside, it’s so good to reflect, I’m not sure when it even happened, but maybe around the time when sleep was more of a concept and when silence was no longer golden (it was suspicious). I realized one day that most of my meals were eaten standing at the sink and subsisted mostly on the food my kids didn’t finish I was finally able to admit that I cried when nap times ended simply because they were for me, not them.
I needed a break. I was exhausted. I couldn’t think clearly. Like when you try to follow the directions on a bottle of Tylenol and it explicitly says “keep away from children”, and you’re standing at the sink wondering if that means you also need to take the pills?
Sometimes there are mixed messages about being selfless and being of service in the world that conflict with our self-care or having our own needs met. I’m not even trying to be Mother Theresa or Amma just really to get this mothering thing right.
Have you heard of Amma? She’s a Hindu guru known as the hugging saint who has hugged more than 37 million people worldwide, and runs a massive charity from Kerala in India – she’s a big deal. She hugs everyone, no one is ever turned away. She’s hugged Royalty. Sting. And lepers. She can go for 17 hours straight without a bathroom break or anything to eat. "Where there is true love, anything is effortless" she’s often heard whispering into people’s ears while she has them in her arms. She was born in a poor fishing village in Kerala, where it was frowned upon for women to touch others. Aides say she gets less than two hours of sleep a night, if she sleeps at all. She’s radiant and on a Divine mission to transform Humanity through the power of a Hug.
Is it really THAT simple? Hugs?
I can see that there is not an obsession with either of them about their appearance or age and I know there’s something there for us to see. Thank you for that.
My Mother-in-Law is is not Sainted (yet), but she makes it seem easy. She’s a gem. I’ve learned so much from her over the years on how to be loving and thoughtful and the truth is that I could never compare to her. She’s spent countless hours sitting on the floor patiently doing lego with our boys and never seems to look at her watch. They feel it. My kids once innocently asked me when they were little why my food didn’t taste as good as “Moosie’s” (what they call their tiny grandmother, long story) but I agreed and I’m not sure. It was probably her secret ingredient… love. I can buy the same foods, use the same recipes, and even the same brands of ingredients but there is just something about a lifetime of experience and the power of a grandmother’s unconditional love that makes it hard to even carry on a conversation when her food arrives at the table. It literally tastes like love. She somehow leaves the kids always better off or feeling like they are her favorite person in the world. We all do.
I have had so many loving Grandmother figures and even a Great Grandmother in my life. Our collective family trees have deep roots and are filled with branches of strong women we’ve never met but are our silent champions. And some of them aren’t. Some of them were just trying to survive their circumstances and did what they had to do.
There have also been the Mothers I’ve found in people who aren’t my Mothers.
But the greatest champion of my own life has been my Mom, Carrie. There aren’t words to describe what incredible support she has been to me throughout my life, even though I’ve probably blamed her for just about every problem I’ve ever had on some level. I think sometimes that’s the problem with therapy or doing work on ourselves, righteously digging out our inner child. Who was the ONE lucky person that was either there too much or not enough the WHOLE time to help explain why our lives have become so unmanageable? What did our mother not do enough of or too much? I’m sorry if you’re reading this Mom it may have taken me five decades to realize this, but I take it back.
There are very few people that I laugh so hard with that I cry and wheeze for breath (there may even be pant-wetting from time to time) and she’s one of them.
One fun thing happened this week, at the EXACT moment I was driving by our old farmhouse on the way to visit my parents, I heard this song on the radio. It reminded me of listening to records with my Mom and a wave of emotion hit me. I teared up and recorded myself singing along the way we used to and emailed it to her (don’t worry, that’s not the video I was referring to that might make you cry;). The real gift of our impromptu “Carrie-oke” duets was always just to have her attention. To see her happy and her being spontaneous with me.
I had a great chat with my sister-in-law this week who took an unexpected road trip and ended up in Rochester, New York of all places. It happens to be the hometown and final resting place of one of the most visible leaders in the women’s suffragette movement Susan B. Anthony. Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life. She had seven brothers and sisters, many of whom became activists for justice and the emancipation of slaves. She’s famously known for casting her ballot in the 1872 Presidential election in Rochester, she was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally. She worked for 5 decades for the rights of women and passed away in 1906. It took 14 years after her death before the 19th amendment was passed and women had the right to vote, and in the 1920 election, more than 8 million women voted.
What moved me on our phone call was learning that women STILL leave flowers at their graveside, especially during every election to pay their respects and show their gratitude. She worked diligently and died before her efforts ever came to fruition. She never had the chance to vote herself legally, but she’s a branch on our collective tree that feels protectively maternal and is one of the many women worldwide that have had our backs.
Thank you for all the courageous wise determined women that have come before us that have paved the way for our freedom.
This year whether or not we are served a cold coffee and a stack of pancakes in our beds or if everyone has forgotten to make our cards and no flowers turn up, I pray that we can find it in our hearts to soften the frowns on our faces and simply love them as best we can.
To love ourselves as best we can.
Please help us see this special day as it was originally intended as a commemorative prayer and a blessing more than a Hallmark moment. In truth, it’s all we want. To be seen and appreciated by those we’ve spent a good part of our lives caring for so let’s focus on giving that to those that have cared for us.
And even those that did it poorly. No parents set out to wreck their children’s lives, but all parents were once children too and if they were not given the love they needed to be able to demonstrate it, it may never have been their own experience so please guide us to forgive them for their mistakes and better understand how this all works. Help us break the patterns and find peace in our relationships and model something different for our family. It’s not excusable, but we can do better.
There can be a tendency for us to culturally blue sky some things we’d like to forget and I pray for us all to have more sensitivity to the fact that Mother’s Day is not a happy day for all of us.
Let’s also take a moment to hold in our hearts all the women and men who are unable to conceive and want nothing more than to have the experience of becoming parents. It’s hard to imagine their frustration so please show us how to comfort them this Mother’s Day so it’s not another in a long string of painful longings and reminders of what they can’t have and so desperately want.
For all the parents who have outlived their children, who have lost a spouse or are slowly losing them to a disease and are facing the incredible burden of grief find some peace with what is.
There are no words. You are all in our hearts on this day.
Last but not least, for all of those whose Mothers have passed. I pray that today is not a lonely reminder of what you’ve lost, but a fond remembrance of the love she gave you and still does from another realm and a deep appreciation for all of the women who have made your life possible.
A friend whose mother recently passed shared the sentiment that when she passed it would be the end of the line because she never had any children of her own to carry on the family name. She felt the weight of that. Please comfort her and any women that will not bear children to know that it is not a feminine requirement for a life well-lived. This woman has no concept of the ripple effect that she’s had on countless others during her long dedicated career in Senior Management and even on my own. Her intelligence and compassion have modeled a style of leadership that is fair, wise, and compassionate.
Mother figures everywhere, bless you for bestowing others with your wisdom, comfort, guidance, encouragement, and the energy of your precious life.
For caring for the sick whether they are aware of it or not. For your daily or weekly visits and calls to a retirement home, a hospital, or even pause your own busy life to move back to your hometown to care for a sick relative when no one else would.
Thank you mothers who selflessly care for children with special needs. You may never hear the thank yous you deserve for your lifelong commitment and dedication but you are loved.
God, please give us all the strength to meet life where it is.
May we find ourselves in a new place becoming a new person finding new ways to continue.
In a fertile, meaningful place to go in any direction we choose.
Let’s do all we can to honor Anna Jarvis’ original intention of this day as one of devotion and divinity and remember all of the amazing women that have come before us that have helped to make our lives and freedoms possible. Thank you for showing us how to love one another through her memorial prayer of appreciation which feels more valuable than any Hallmark moment ever could.
And while we’re at it, please remind us to stock up on panty liners in our washrooms.
Amen.
With love and devotion,
Nona
ps. Three different people gifted us with this same Robert Munsch book when our children were little so I took that as a sign that it needed to be read. 30 million copies have been sold around the world of this short compelling story. Profound in its’ simplicity it has captured our natural choreography of what it means to Mother.
I’m not surprised that someone has made a short film based on it - take a peak, it’s less than 5 minutes to reflect on the mother figures in our lives and what a gift it is to have a family to care for and to care for in return through the 80-year cycles of our lives.
Beautiful!!!❤️❤️❤️ happy Mothers Day, Dear you!!xoxo😘