mother's day

My mother, tending to a baby squirrel, Mother's Day 2015.

Happy Mother's Day, readers!

Today, I am reminded of how lucky I was to have grown up surrounded by strong women, particularly my own mother. When I think of my mother, I think of the tiny blonde force of nature who has never failed to leave those around her better than she found them.

I arrived late to a family party this afternoon, after an overnight at my volunteer ambulance company. It shouldn't have surprised me that, at the height of the party, she was sitting in a patch of dirt in the backyard, tending to a motherless baby squirrel. Nothing could better capture the essence of the woman who raised me.

Growing up, my brother and I witnessed her earnest, tireless drive to heal everything she found broken in the world. She has always been the kind of person who stops homeless people to ask them what they need, finding them later with blankets, food, and bottled water. As a stay-at-home mom during our early years, she generously offered to watch several of our peers with struggling single parents. And she took the tenderest care of her ailing mother-in-law, my beloved Nene, spending endless hours running errands, organizing a cornucopia of geriatric medications, and driving her on appointment after appointment, without complaint. My mother, quite simply, has never had anything in this world that she wasn't willing to share, whether it was her money, her time, or her uncommon gift of kindness.

In turn, I have had to share her-- not only with my brother, but with many she meets. Born a nurturer, she has been a motherly figure to many from her early days as the big sister of a large family, to her work as a nurse. My grandpa refers to her jokingly as "Mother Teresa without the religion," and he is not far off. There are many gifts to have in this world, but I have found none quite so rare as hers. She is pure heart.

She was a relatively young mom-- merely 23 years of age when I was born. It couldn't have been easy, and we didn't make it any easier for her. I was precocious. I rolled my eyes at her too much. I had too many opinions that I voiced too loudly, way too early on. I went through days of hormonal teenage angst that lasted well into my twenties. But my mom has loved me through it all.

I hope that I have begun to live up to the example she has set for us. I hope that my brother and I are somehow continuations of the legacy of compassion and caring that we simply could not ignore. I hope, someday, to be able to impart these gifts to another generation.

But, as a woman divorcing in my thirtieth year, I do not have the luxury of knowing whether children are in the cards for me-- which has been a difficult concept to come to terms with. Strongly maternal myself, I always imagined that I would someday have a family of my own, and I planned my life accordingly. But things fall apart, sometimes, in ways you can't quite piece back together. There are things you can change. There are things you can't.

Whatever life holds in store for me, I am lucky to have had her beautiful example to learn and to grow by. Though I may never quite live up to it, I couldn't be more thankful for the opportunity to try, every day, to fill the very big shoes of the very little woman I call my mom.