Mothers- Thoughts on having one, on being one

I think I've said it before, and if you have a mother then you can likely identify- there are so many things we have probably told ourselves that our mothers do that we never would when we became a mother. There is a saying I once found in an old tole-painting magazine and I swear one day I will buy some fresh paint, varnish up a piece of wood and paint the saying for myself.

It goes: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall... I AM my mother after all."

My own mother often said she didn't want to become like her mother and I guess hearing that every now and then as I was growing up taught me to think that being like my mother was going to be a bad thing. I am sure in some respects (for me) it would be bad. But I really adore my mother even with her faults and being like her really wouldn't be bad at all. Let me explain.

There were four of us girls, all spaced pretty close to two years apart. My mother is a saint just for taking on that challenge in my own eyes- I never realized just how hard it must have been for her until now I have Hayley (one child) and can some days barely handle it. And my mom doesn't drink either!

Add to the fact that my mother worked full time. My dad, much as we love him, was never the most stable when it came to jobs or money so she was really pulling the weight of two. And this is where I start to get teary eyed just thinking about her accomplishments as a mother.

Easter just came and went this year. I was so busy with work, and visitors, and being pregnant and tired that I just did not have time to buy my child a new Easter dress. I have cried about this many times since then because I feel like a terrible mother. Not that my child didn't have a dress to wear, she did. She had plenty, and some were new. But none of them were Easter dresses- you know, church dresses with frills and lace and new shoes to go with. Last year she had a new Easter dress- her first ever- and I remembered with pride all those Easters where we slept with our new shoes on the end of our bed and our dresses hanging nearby because we were so excited to wear them the next day.

But what makes me feel really inadequate is that my own mother, with four children, working fifty plus hours a week, always, ALWAYS had new Easter dresses for us. Not one single Easter ever went by where we did not have a new dress. And considering money was tight, and in those days it was still economical to make your clothes at home, not only did we have new Easter dresses, but they were lovingly handmade. By hands that worked all day, and sewed into the midnight hours, sometimes pulling out seams because they were not to exact standards when no one but the seamstress would have noticed.

So these last few weeks after Easter I have really spent time thinking. If I can only be half the mother that my mom is I know Hayley will be really lucky. You just don't know all the things your mother did for you until you have children of your own. I want to say then, and only then, do you even understand the enormity of the sacrifices your mother made for you.

To all the moms that make sacrifices that appear to go unnoticed- they don't. One day, maybe long after you have forgotten the things you have done, your children will remember. They will cry as they type about how much they finally realize that you gave up for them. And they will cry because they will hope that one day they can be as selfless as you have been. Love is unconditional. This is the crushing love they call parenthood.I am so very blessed to be here.