I find myself a bit pensive and very nostalgic as we approach another Mother's Day-now that my daughters are grown. I've been through quite a few of these days created to celebrate the role of motherhood. The first year I was numb and in disbelief as I realized I was the one taken out to lunch to honor my newfound title. After the table was cleared, I left the restaurant
completely exhausted, unsure if my meal had been consumed. The entire lunch had been spent trying to calm a crying child, thus proving the reality that I was indeed the mother.
This day has been commemorated by handmade gifts by my young daughters (while dancing with excitement) to the gifts I received during the teenage challenge years. Their gifts or cards in that season proved they stillloved me even though other days I wondered. There was the scurry home from college to do laundry while making sure I felt special even though they were on a college budget. This season of Mother's Days I receive not only presents but phone calls from cities where my daughters now live that tell me how special our relationship is.
But the gifts I have received on Mother's Day celebrations pale in comparison to the gifts I have of the memories of my girls:
- Showing up at a special event for one of our Forefront musicians with baby spit on my shoulder that landed there as I handed a crying child off to the sitter.
- The school function I attended with a feathered barrette in my hair because my daughter thought it matched my outfit.
- Snow angels created in slush because Tennessee's snow was seldom deep.
- Flowers brought in from the backyard with muddy footprints across the kitchen floor.
- The years of teenage panic that led to changing clothes one more time before we headed out the door-me to work, she to school. Some days it was not only my daughter, it was both of us returning to the closet for the last-minute wardrobe crisis.
- The high school graduation where my daughter told me I had mattered for the last 18 years.
- The college dorm we decorated with things brought from home mixed with Target dorm room specials, creating her new place to live.
It's those mental treasures and many others like them that make my Mother's Day special. It makes all the angst, worry, and frustration of those growing-up years fade, leaving only the treasure of this special relationship that was created the day I became a mom. The strength of the relationship built will continue through the coming years and the memories yet to be shaped. The Mother's Day gift I'll never tire of-my most precious Mother's Day gift-is the scrapbook of memories held deep in my heart.