In Reverence of Mothers

I have been annoyed over the past two weeks by the saccharine nature of Mothers Day commercials, in which gooey-eyed women wearing aprons stroke greeting cards and clutch bouquets of expensive, bright-hued carnations. There is nothing wrong with cards and flowers—I love them both—but such depictions, not unlike the depiction of women during pregnancy, devalue motherhood. From childbirth and beyond, mothers are warrior goddesses. They are to be revered, not coddled. Motherhood is a not state of being in which women suddenly become wholly selfless and undyingly loving. Motherhood is instead a practice.

When I was younger I never gave a second thought to my assumption that my mother wanted nothing more than to shape her entire life around my needs. This “assumption” wasn’t even concrete enough to be something that I actually thought in real words; my mother was simply there, and she was there for me.

My mom used to tuck me into bed every night, and every night we would have the same routine. I would get into bed, and she would sing to me. She sang first “You Are My Sunshine,” a song whose second verse always made me achingly sad, and then she would sing a song she made up for me when I was a baby. Then we would talk a little and I would say prayers, and as she left the room she would say four things: “Good night. Sleep tight. I’ll check on you in a minute. I love you.” More often than not I would call her back to ask just one more thing, and she would patiently come back and answer, and then she would say the four things again. Sometimes, when I had called her back several times because I had a lot on my mind, came the moment of truth. I would wait, almost holding my breath, to see if my mother was going to sigh as she said the four things.

I didn’t know the word for sigh, but I knew that loud breath in and out could signal impatience, or tiredness, or in my own current grown-up words a wish for the baby to just go to sleep so you can have a few minutes of peace. If my mother sighed as she said the four things, I would worry that she was not happy, that she was tired of me asking her things at bedtime, and that she would not come back the next time I called from the dark. She almost never sighed. She always came back.

I started this post with the words “when I was younger” but the truth is that by “younger” I really mean about, oh, seven months and one week ago. Sometimes I feel like having a baby is like wandering through the wreckage after a severe storm. The most important thing is that you have the baby, safe and soft, in your arms, but the rest of your life is a mess. It’s not a total loss; many of your things are still there, but the wind has torn through the house, the rain has soaked things through, and you know it’s going to be a long time before it’s all put back in order.

I was my mother’s little storm. She almost never sighed, and she always came back.

So thank you mom, for loving me, for singing to me, for making me breakfast, for packing my lunches and putting little notes in them, for getting me out of school to go eat Chinese food with you, for letting me choose the radio station, for brushing the tangles out of my hair, for driving me miles out of the way so I could go good schools, for letting me host so many slumber parties, for waiting hours for me to get out of ballet lessons, for letting me date boys you hated. Thank you for reading the same stories over and over, for your cool hands when I was sick, for encouraging me to go away to explore the world. Thank you for always answering the phone when I call, for putting your life on hold to babysit my baby, and for being my mother as I become a mother. Thank you for all those times you chose not to sigh even though you were tired and probably looking forward to some time to yourself. Thank you for always coming back. For all this and a million other things, thank you.

And thank you to the other mother in my life, my mother-in-law. Thank you for putting your life and your art on hold to care for Amelia, for making the long drive to DC so many times, for all of the food and gifts and stories and laughter you bring each time you come. Thank you for being the keeper of my library of poems, for the beautiful comforter I am currently snuggling under as I write this, and not least of all, for being the mother of the man who is singing to our baby as I write it. Thank you for doing all the thousands of things you did, both noticed and unnoticed, that allowed him to become the person I love so much.

In conclusion, being the experienced, seasoned mother that I am today, I recommend that you include with the card or the flowers or the brunch or the spa gift certificate or— ahem—the nothing else that you remembered to send your mom today (oops)—a recognition of the practice of your mother’s mothering—the daily choices she has made and still makes to be your mother, the ways she has shaped her life to include your own. And maybe a thank you.