A Mother's Heart

This week, my coworker lost her Mom.  It was not sudden or unexpected but that really didn't change anything.  After all, we are never ready to lose our Moms.

When we got the word that her Mom had passed, my heart sank for her. I, like most of us that have laid our Moms to rest, naturally thought back to the day we lost our own Mothers and what its like to live in a world without a Mom.

Love them or hate them, you know most Mothers love their children in a most unique way.  For the majority of us it was our Moms that rocked us and cared for us and hugged us and kissed us.  They took care of us when we were sick and made sure we had what we needed and sometimes what we wanted.  Right or wrong, they did their best for us.  No Mom is perfect, they are human.  They make mistakes.  Lots of them.  So do we.

But in our lives, we are given but one Mom at birth. We were paired up by some guiding force and when we were born, the life of our Moms changed.  For a time, she lived a selfless life, putting her child first and her own wants and needs secondary.  She made mistakes and more mistakes.  But she never gave up on her child.  She loved her child with uniqueness that is unmatched.

This week made me think about Moms.  All the Moms, the new ones and the old ones.  I thought about the bond that exists between Moms and their children.  How all their hopes and dreams were bundled up in a noisy, messy and very demanding package.  Yet, when it came to their babies, there was nothing more beautiful, more inspiring or more heaven sent in this entire world.

The journey a Mom travels is long and exhausting.  It is also filled with indescribable love.  There a moments of joy that make all the sleepless nights fade into some distant obscure memory that leaves barely a trace as the years go by.

Love them or hate them for all their faults, they are our Moms.  And when they die, a huge part of us dies with them.  That part is our childhood and the anchor which grounded us to this world.  We are left to pick up the pieces of a life that seems foreign in many respects.  If we are lucky to have aged gracefully before letting go of our Mom's hand for the last time, then the road our Mom's traveled seems clear and understandable. If we are lucky enough, we can forgive them for their mistakes and embrace the best part of what they gave us.

Without a doubt, Moms shape and mold us into who we are today.  We remember what they taught us and their mistakes taught us how to avoid pitfalls in our own lives.

The world has one less Mom this week and that is a sadness we can all share.