Moms… it’s a heart opening permanence

So much is written about mothers on this second Sunday in May. I just finished reading a long article in Zoomer Magazine (yes! I’m so over Zoomer, I recently bought my first seniors ski ticket!) about a man’s connectness to his mother.

Is it obligatory or is it sentiment?

I’m watching two young women as they edge their way towards their first Mother’s Day experiences. My daughter in law, Amie and my good friend’s daughter, Anne… both have brand new babies with big button eyes and expressive eyebrows and a powerful way of looking at the world. One baby bounces. One baby watches.

But Amie and Anne have joined that circle, that connection that is indescribible with your first born. As mothers, we all prepare. We prepare baby rooms, baby places, and we unwrap endless gifts and connect with mothers with other babies in carriages and strollers, in front packs and slings. We read. We go online. And we get ready.

And while that’s happening, the world’s every day miracle is moving within. Little flutters, then rolls, then connections that let us know the magic of another life is going to emerge.

Here’s what none of us is prepared for. Not one mother in the whole world is prepared for the chasm that stretches her heart to its breaking point, an opening that punches us breathless with a love for this pink-skinned, domed, wrinkled wonder that we have known for months. Love happens, of course, as part of the nursery preparations… it happens in our brains. But the arrival, the holding, the soulful eye connection, the smell of skin, the wonder just opens our heart and love burns like fire.

Funny thing, too. That same heart, same brain, same fire happens again if we are lucky enough to have a second child. There’s a greater wonder there, too, because this baby is totally different.

The power, the surge, the unbridled connection for moms and infants… isn’t that really what we celebrate?

I plan to spend the day with some connection to my children, but my own pressing need is to spend it with my mom… the woman who, at age 86, still looks at me with that fire of enthusiasm like no other person in the world can ever replicate. It’s that ultimate connectedness…

So, for Amie, for Anne, for hundreds of young women all across this city who are celebrating their very first Mother’s Day, congratulations! You now know how much your own mothers love you. You now know what you did to their hearts on your birth-days. You now know how permanent is your relationship. You now know what it’s like to have your heart blown wide open by someone slightly bigger than a Cabbage Patch doll.

Happy Mothers Day!