The Kind of Mom I'm Really Not

 

With the passing of Mother's Day, my mind has been immersed in memories of the kind of mom I was going to be- the kind of mom I was before I had children. I watched my mother do it, so I knew how to do it- and perfectly, too.

However, I should've known my mom was something extra special because of the awe in the praise I would hear from those who knew her. It was not uncommon for me to be asked, "How does she do it?" I would just shrug my shoulders and think, "Ah, that's what moms do." It never dawned on me that if I looked down the row of the other families at church, their eight girls would not be in matching homemade dresses and their three sons would not all have pressed white shirts and nice double-breasted suits. And they certainly would not all be sitting still (except for the occasional shoulder shakes we would get when we couldn't get rid of the giggles). It didn't occur to me that their moms hadn't just finished building a triple bunk bed or a new front porch. Their moms didn't make bread every single day, either, just to help keep the many bellies in the house full.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had a great fear come over me. I hadn't turned into my mother. I wasn't yet twenty years old and I was still the same naïve, uneducated and very unskilled person I always had been. I had little sewing, cooking, managerial, or homemaking knowledge. I couldn't help but wonder at the daunting task that lay ahead of me. My biggest fear, though, was when I thought of the many nights my mom had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning sewing my prom dress, baking me a cake I needed for school the next day (because I was in tears after my three failed attempts), or finishing a decorating project she wanted finished before my dad would return from his business trip. I knew I just didn't have it in me to stay up all night. I required too much sleep. I just wasn't that giving of a person, either. I really didn't think I could love quite that much.

Then Rebecca was born. Oh! My precious baby! Never had I known a feeling like that. I absolutely knew there was not as much love in any other heart in all the world as there was in mine. It felt absolutely impossible. And then she taught me. That very night Rebecca cried until 4:00 in the morning. I couldn't get out of bed, but I wouldn't let the nurses help out and take her from my room. Her dad and I stayed up the whole night doing what we could to care for her. The next night was similar to her first, and so were many nights thereafter.

I was tired. I was sore from delivery and the other care an infant needs. I felt guilty that I didn't know how to care for her in such a way to keep her calm. But the one thing I didn't feel was the fear that I couldn't love enough. I knew on that first night I would have enough love in my little heart to care for her on that night and every night forevermore.

I'm really not the kind of mom I thought I would be. Circumstance has not allowed it. I don't make bread every day, and I certainly don't do construction work. I hardly even decorate. But do you know what? I don't sleep either. One child after another has come into my life needing my care, and I'm so grateful a kind Father in Heaven has filled my mother-heart with enough love for our own late night talks, snuggles after the nightmares, cleaning up a sick child, and you know what else? There was even a night when my dear Sarah was in tears after several attempts at sewing, and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning finishing her jacket for the beautiful prom dress we made together. :)