Dear Moms: thank you.

Mother’s Day, right from the very beginning, has always been complicated for me. Maybe it’s because my very first one was so upside down, so sad without my own mother, so beautiful and joyful to be a mother myself to my newborn son. But mostly it always feels complicated because as any mother will tell you, the business of mothering is a 24/7 job. We never stop caring or fighting or loving. It seems odd that we should celebrate something all encompassing only one day a year, and do so with such simplistic frivolity. More than that, we often honor Mothers specifically for what they do for others. I love my children more than my own life. But I bristle whenever I receive cards from them thanking me for what I do for them (which is a lot!) but mostly because it’s a reminder that I’m doing too much for them (which won’t help them down the stretch) and because it makes it seem like our connection and love for each other is tied to things that are actionable, which I would hope they would not be. But there appears to be no special holiday where we honor the unique space of loving others and separating it from what they do for others. I don’t know. I think I”m overthinking this, which is par for the course. 

Anyhow, this past year was a lot. While I’m so grateful to science and vaccines and masks that are slowly allowing us to return to some semblance of normalcy, I would be lying if I said it’s been difficult for me to shift out of survivalist mode. Seemingly overnight, at least around here we shifted from a stay home message to a do all the things message and I’m a bit emotionally and physically taxed from that one. The right thing then was to lock us in. The right thing now is to let everyone go. I can make this transition without batting an eye, right? Mostly. Mothers will because that’s just what we do. Even when it’s hard and tricky for those we love we just keep plowing through.

I was talking to Ruby’s soccer coach this morning and he was telling me his general strategy for every game. Regardless of who shows up on the field with you, don’t think, just move forward, just keep pressing forward. The game never changes. Get the ball in the goal and play on. But today I can’t move forward without honoring who has been on the field with me this past year. The moms who showed up in my text messages to offer support, let me vent, celebrate long distance victories, the ones who I put on seventeen layers and a mask just for the chance to walk in the snow with them, have a cup of coffee from six feet away on their driveway, a quick call in the Covid testing line, a virtual happy or karaoke hour. To each of you, today and everyday I honor you not for what you do but for who you are. I love you not for what you do for your kids or even for me but in each and every way this year, in gestures big and small you have revealed your hearts and character: you are fierce, and kind, and salty and funny. You are non judgmental and relentlessly loving. And you are dedicating yourselves to raising more good people like that. Cheers.

Recently, I was talking to another friend who also lost her mother many years ago. She was musing about whether she looked like her Mother at this age. Of course there were some similarities, but mostly what I was reminded is that she like all of us, is most like her Mother in her absolute relentlessness. This is what we carry on from them. Just that: the ability to carry on. You never ever quit this year. Not on yourself or your kids or your job or your friends. I'm truly in awe of you. So to the most relentless, bad ass bunch of woman I know, Happy Mother's Day. And thank you for helping me through this year. I'm forever grateful to you.

And to the one who loved me relentlessly right from the start, cheers to you too.