Happy Mother’s Day to every woman reading this message today!
We know who you are: the selfless champion of other’s dreams. The biological, adoptive, fostered, relative, friend, champion, devoted women dedicated to the wellness, growth and success of others. The Grandmothers and Great grandmothers who inspire and support through sickness, family strife, economic burdens, a team during deployments, confidants to the young, so many roles and responsibilities that define your own life long after giving birth.
Motherhood is for life. Only one person can give birth to one person and so mothers are a precious link to the divine. A force we call on throughout our lives as burdens are shouldered, successes are celebrated and always love is shared.
This is an ambitious topic so please know that I respect that no message could conceptualize a mother. From my own perspective in the cancer center, motherhood has its own unique place both with the caring team, and the patients and family entering the doors putting theirs lives and concerns in our hands. The lifting and hope we give to each other, all with the knowledge that these precious women have a sacred bond.
Dealing with the magnitude of a cancer diagnosis is so often the least of patients’ issues. I witness connections daily: the children gathered around the mother, the woman with tears for her own child diagnosed, the grandmother holding everyone together trying to minimize her own drama, the child carefully walking the grandmother down the hall to therapy. Every single interaction bears the weight of a mother’s role. Often they protect and stand stronger than they feel to limit the fear for the family. Great Grandmothers sense the time has come for independence to end and are concerned about becoming a burden. It is always always always about caring for others. Motherhood by nature is selfless. No matter the illness or pain. Somehow they are all gifted with the grace and fortitude, wisdom and fierceness of a soldier.
There is no training. We are all humbled by the work of motherhood and learn as we go, rarely confessing this to each other. Mother’s do not have the luxury of doubt. They need to be decisive, deliberate and self directed. Often the mission feels spiritual.
Allow me to offer on this Mother’s Day: if you are blessed to still have your mother, celebrate her. If she is gone, pray to her and thank her, if you are a young mother, have faith that you have the strength of generations. If you are a grandmother, know that your power is in your legacy. If you are a husband, friend, father, give praise that there are women in your life who represent the angels.
Thank you all for sharing this day with me. Know that you are a blessing to others forever.