by Anita DiGregory
“May Musings and Motherhood”
I love May in Maryland. The sun has returned (for the most part) and has generally decided to stick around for a while. Bulky boots have been replaced with flip flops, or better yet, bare feet. It stays lighter longer, somehow promising a more potential-filled day. Lovingly gathered and gifted dandelion bouquets; the sounds of children’s laughter at twilight; jars filled with magical, glowing lightning bugs soon to be released…stir memories of long, lazy summers almost forgotten.
I must admit, I look forward to May and the beginning of summer, nearly all year long. Summer’s promises of family-friendly opportunities, breaks in schedules, chances for much-needed reconnections, and occasions for memory-making moments generally sustain me through the long, cold, over-scheduled days of winter.
However, this May promises to be bittersweet for this momma. Two more will graduate and move on to the next exciting chapter of their lives. As proud as I am of them and as excited as I am for them to start new adventures, this momma’s heart will break just a little. I find myself holding on just a little tighter, a little longer, trying to press those memories tightly in my heart, like flowers pressed in a book.
I stumbled upon this quote from Robert Farror Capon: “To be a Mother is to be the sacrament—the effective symbol—of place. Mothers do not make homes, they are our home: in the simple sense that we begin our days by long sojourn within the body of a woman; in the extended sense that she remains our center of gravity through the years. She is the very diagram of belonging, the where in whose vicinity we are fed and watered. She is geography incarnate.”
I think he is right about this. My mother succeeded in creating this. I guess this is why my siblings and I have been known to travel miles and pack our families—nineteen in all—into a tiny little home by the beach for a week. Through the good times and the bad, the fights and tears, the laughs and hugs, family sustains. In that safe space, I exhale.
I hope I have succeeded in creating this for my brood. Recently, on a really bad, horrible, no good day, my oldest (who is soon expecting his own first little one) told my husband and I not to worry; we had created a home where the children will want to return to visit, a safe place filled with love and memories. In that moment, he brought me much-needed peace and hope. I hope he is right.
So as May unfolds, I wish you the happiest Mother’s Day. I wish you long, beautiful days surrounded with family, filled with love, and lots and lots of wonderful memory-making opportunities.
We never know how many moments we have left…seize this moment and make it count!
Moving Mom Musings
“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.”
~ Robert Browning
“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.”
~ Gilda Radner
“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”
~ George Washington
“I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”
~ Sophia Loren
“Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There’s no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving.”
~ Gail Tsukiyama
“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
~ Washington Irving
“Having kids—the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings—is the biggest job anyone can embark on.”
~ Maria Shriver
“How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
Monumental Mommy Movies
Mom’s Night Out • The Blind Side The Incredibles • Brave
The Sound of Music • Akeelah and the Bee • Freaky Friday • Steel Magnolias • my mom’s personal favorite: Terms of Endearment.
