pre Mother’s Day thoughts and a tribute to my mother

As a little addendum to my post about last weekend (back HERE), despite being on a little “fast” from technology on Sunday (along with some other moms from our tech-wise mom group last week…someone challenged us to try it because it talked about the value of doing that every now and again in the book we read), thank Heavens I still had my phone in my Sunday bag and was able to whip it out to record part of a song the primary was practicing for Mother’s Day.  Lucy has a solo in it and my friend and I were sitting there in the pews with tears spilling out of our eyes watching those kids sing.

Here’s Lucy’s part:

And here’s the rest after that:

Is that not the sweetest thing?  I’m going to bawl my eyes out when they sing it on Sunday.  Maybe because I need to know that what I’m doing is “enough.”  Boy, mothering gets even more interesting with older kids, because you still need to mother, but in such a different, shifting way.  And then teenage years are interesting and budding teenagers are even more interesting and motherhood just has to shift and meld and heave and pull and lead with just the right amount of pushing.

Sometimes I get it right.  And much more often I don’t, dang it, but I sure am trying!

I sat there watching those kids sing their hearts out feeling so emotional with gratitude for motherhood, every bit of it.  At one point one kid tossed a shoe off the stage, and then that little boy to the right of the microphone pulled out one of those tissues next to him, did a dramatic wipe of his nose, and then put the tissue right back in that box.  And something about those things mixed with all those kids swaying to the spirit of that music just welled up something deep and spongy inside.  Made me think of those “motherhood muscles” I talked about back HERE, and how each of those children up on that stage, each with their own individual challenges and circumstances, is blessed by a mother who adores them and prays for them and wants so much to nurture them in a way that will raise them to be confident and contributing and happy adults.

Motherhood is such an exceptionally difficult and rewarding job, and sitting there on that bench with tears in my eyes I felt such a beautiful love for it.  The good parts and the bad parts all mixed together.

Made me think of my mother, and how she continues to mother with such grace and beauty.

So I want to do a little tribute to her before the rush of Mother’s Day comes parading in.

I’m attaching two pictures of my mother for us to examine…pictures I sent with my birthday note to her last month.

In the first, we sit on a tree branch, my sister Saren and I, a little nervous, posed that way most probably because my Dad had the idea, telling us all was well from behind his camera just in front (I’m SO grateful my dad was into photography so we have some of these moments captured!!).

We snuggle with our perfectly coordinated stuffed bunnies, opposite colors of our dresses which I’m pretty sure my mom made, mary-janes and sandals she shopped for and found for us, hair she curled, socks she probably pulled up for us, nice and high 🙂  I love to think about all those little things she did as our mother…the physically demanding, the balancing.  Makes me swell up with gratitude for her “motherhood muscles“…ones that came so natural to her.

But what I love most about this particular picture is that that mother of mine is looking at us, not at the camera.  Although I would love to see her face, I love that she didn’t care about looking glamorous for the camera, she cared about calming our high-tree-branch-fears just like she did with every fear and trial that has come our way since.

Then in this next picture there we are once again, Saren and me, but this time, look at my mom’s face:

It’s a little dark, and still, not looking at the camera, but can you see it?

It shines beauty and love in every way in how she’s looking at my sister.  How she’s holding me on her lap, natural closeness and protection.  How she’s IN the moment instead of hovering around it.  Just as she’s in the moment every time she’s with us.

How I love that dear mother of mine, and how I aspire to be more like her every day, and how grateful I am, even in my most impatient days that I can remember her queenly blood runs through my veins, and because of that, maybe I CAN deal with things in grace and love as she does.

Love you forever and ever, Mom.

Love,
Shawni