Mother's Day Memory

I don’t know my actual earliest memory of my Mom, but one that is imprinted in my brain is from naptime when we lived across the street from (what my kids now call) “The Red House.” The Red House is actually the house on Eastwood Drive that my mom grew up in, I also lived in my youth, AND where we were living when both Holden and Zoë were both born.

But my memory is from the house kitty-corner to The Red House. In the upstairs bedroom, on what seemed like a GIANT bed, I remember nap-time: my mom reading to me (not sure what story), but cuddled up together in that bed and just hearing her voice, and feeling her body and not having a care in the world – except trying to decide if I wanted to escape sleep more than I wanted to cuddle.

I imagine this image is the one I think about most often because it was imprinted multiple times over. I think back on that moment (or perhaps moments) frozen in time and now, as an adult can wonder: Where was Cassandra? Was Celeste with us, and I just didn’t realize it? How is it that I could feel like I was the only other human in the world at that moment. Just me and my mom.

I don’t remember my time as a newborn – but I do remember time with my newborns. The exhaustion and feeling that you’ll never be the same since you are responsible for another human’s well being. I think about my mom being in “that time” with me. To this day, she says does not remember “the hard parts.” But from my own experience, I can recall on them for her. But I also understand as children age, that work shifts into something even harder--in a different way.

There are so many other memories—the majority involve food.  There’s a reason when I cook or bake something I’m proud of, the highest honor of achievement my children bestow are the words, “This is almost as good as Mama Suites.”

She's an incredible example of service. I firmly believe that the work of social justice is "Women's Work." (Obviously it should be Men's too...but that's a different blog post).

My mom is not one to paint a sign and march at a rally, but she's one to visit the sick and elderly and widowed -- to take in meals and go about her life doing the work of Jesus in realtime (and He was like the ORIGINAL Social Justice Warrior).

I’m grateful for her example.

I'm grateful she gave me life. 

I'm so thankful for my mother.