Pieces of Me: Mother's Day - Perspective from a Supper Supper Mom

It amazes me how over the years, Mother's Day has evolved and changed and continues to have new meanings for me, especially since becoming a mother myself. Some may not be aware that I became a mother, one month after my seventeenth birthday. Very young...very clueless...and babies didn't come with a manual back then. (These days there is a book, What to Expect: The First Year...did you know there was a manual?)

As a new mom, I called on my own mother a lot for answers. She didn't have a manual either...but she'd raised six kids ...and always had an answer for every question I posed. Sometimes those answers were quite comical. By age twenty three I was mother to three. Jami, Brandi & Joshua. At twenty seven I became a step-mother to Kimberly, Aaron & John.....again no manual....and yet a Mother's heart expands and grows and fills with love for each child.

A parent's love is whole no matter how many times divided. ~Robert Brault

kim, jami, brandi, john, josh, aaron

Becoming a mother helps you to appreciate the mother that you had, especially when you realize just how much hard work there is in mothering. I remember calling my mom when my children became teenagers.... and apologize for every bad thing I had ever done....she just laughed at me.

Losing my mother...has also redefined Mother's Day for me. It has been almost 4 years since her death and I think about her so often. We shared a passion for quilting...she would be thrilled beyond measure that I now work in a quilt shop and spend my days with fabric. Our visits always included trips to quilt shops. When she died, I looked for photos of her and I together and found none....I was crushed. Several months later, we found this photo in a folder on the computer from Brandi's wedding. The only photo I have of my Mom and I....

And just when I thought my heart could swell no more....I became a Grandma....and it has swelled it seven times over.

finn

ava

tanner, taelyn & ty

lucia

fletcher

But...I think the most important thing that has affected how I see and view motherhood and Mother's Day... has been watching my own daughters, step-daughter, and daughter's in law, become mother's themselves. Seeing that look of pure love on their faces... as they delight in their own children...opens a floodgate of memories from when I felt those very same joys as a young mother. And is a reminder of how much I love them and how proud I am of the women they have become.