A Mother to Me

Mother's Day has been a day of mixed emotions for the last five years. In the same year I mourned my own mother's passing, I celebrated the life of my own child growing inside me. There was never a year without mothering of some sort. It has only been recently that I've been burdened by the question, "But who mothers me when I need a mommy?" What I've realized over these years is that in the absence of my own physical mother, so many others are working to fill the hole.

I've always had a few people at work who I think of as my "work mommy"--someone who I consider a mentor, a confidant, and who I know genuinely cares about me and has my back. I still have someone at work like that, and I'm grateful for her every day. This is mothering to me.

The obvious mothers in my life are my own family.  My Auntie, my Oma, my cousin Mari, my mother-in-law. Though I don't have daily or even really regular contact with these amazing women, they are all there for me when I need them, unconditionally. This is mothering to me.

In a different way, my strong female friends fill the mother hole for me. So many of them who understand me the way my mom did, and who have known me for so long and through so much, who have listened to me blabber and cry and question and contemplate. These women who mother alongside me and reassure me of my own mothering capabilities when I doubt myself and have no mother to go to for reassurance or guidance. We mother together. We are the village of the future, raising amazing people together through strong powerful motherhood. This is mothering to me.

In the last few days, Adelaide has started saying things like she can't wait to be the one to do things for me. She wants to cook for me and do the laundry. She has been commenting on how much I do for everyone. At this moment she is orchestrating a bacon-smelling extravaganza, in true mother fashion. She is already a caregiver for Joseph, and for all of us. It amazes me how much her spirit is my mother's. When she was conceived mere weeks after my mother died, I knew her spirit was in this child. But now that she is growing into this person, I know it for a fact.

The full circle is being drawn and I am in the center of it. Surrounded by the love and spirit of the mothers and mother-spirits in my life. Safe, and protected. Looked-after with compassion and concern. I am not without a mother. I am the mother. We are all mother. Today I will not mourn the absent. I will celebrate the mother-ness and completeness of my amazing life.

Thank you my beautiful women.