On Being a Mother......

(This is my last year's Mother's Day article)

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

Mother’s Day becomes more special each year because my kids are grown, married, with families.

My mother has long been gone and I can’t call. However, as I get older (and older and older) I remember the good things about Mother rather than the things that absolutely irritated me beyond imagination.

Actually, I’d gotten over most of that by the time I had both my children. It was about then I decided she wasn’t just “out to get me” or “make only MY life miserable”—she was simply being a mother.

If she’d told me how hard a job that was going to be, I’d laughed in her face. Wait, behind her back because she’d smacked my backside if I’d laughed in her face.

Being a mother is amazing. It’s scary. It’s rewarding. It’s a life of worrying. It’s not knowing how good a job you’ve done. It’s hurting when your children hurt and rejoicing when they’re happy. It’s tiring. It’s learning new things about your own mother. It’s being room mother forever because you’re the only one who can’t stand them not having a fun parties for given occasions. It’s being a Girl Scout and Boy Scout leader. It’s being a Sunday school teacher and youth leader. It’s being the house everyone piles into. It’s having a sense of humor above and beyond a normal person.

It’s never ending.

In other words, it’s a blessed honor.

I talked to son and daughter-in-law for a long while and being a mother is hearing peace, joy, and contentment in son’s voice and happy laughter between him and his wife. It’s knowing son found his soul mate and together they are embracing their future.

Daughter called amidst her own crisis (her hubby was in the hospital) to wish me a happy Mother’s Day. As I wished her the same, I realized what a strong woman daughter had become as a wife and mother. She too embraces life and her future.

They left me with “I love you” and hung up to continue the roles in their given lives.

They can never know or understand the effect those three little words have. Not that they don’t, haven’t and will say them again.

On Mother’s Day there is an unspoken thank you.

A gift no money could buy.

Happy Mother’s Day!