It’s a dreary rainy day outside today. So instead of being out adventuring we are inside finding things to do. It makes me anxious. It makes me miss my mom. It makes me think about all of the Mother’s Days over all of the years and wonder…do I need her more today than I did before? Is there a time that our needs lessen or do they just change.
As a child we are unaware of just how much we “need” our mother. We take advantage of everything just being there when we want it to be. We don’t realize the sacrifices made. Yet we need them. Every day we need them. For the very most basic life-giving things, we need our mother. 
As a teenager we start to feel more independent. Like we are actually an adult. We act as if we know it all and we feel invincible. We start to act as if we don’t need our mother. As if we just love them but can make it. And then, a small act of unkindness and we run filled with tears and fury to the one place that is always consistent, always there. We need our mother. Those feel like great big huge needs and they overshadow all of the adult actions we thought we were making. 
Then off to college. We are on our own. Truly. Our basic needs every day, we take care of ourselves. We don’t rely upon our mothers for life-sustaining needs. At least not as we did before. We are growing up. We are making our way in the world. And yet, in the quite recesses of our minds when we make the big mistakes, the wrong choices, and even when we do something great or make the right choice, there is our mother in the back of our minds…cheering us on whether good or bad, moving us forward with love. And again we run to her, in need of our mother. Still not yet understanding how great her place is in our lives. 
Then we are married. We call our mom daily for advice. Our girlfriends seem to drift ever so slightly away and the calls to them turn, more to our mother than to our social group. We find that being an adult is not what we thought it was in our teenage years. We realize that all of those things we thought we could do, so independently are sometimes actually very hard. In those moments we turn again to our Mother for love and support. For the whispering of confidence and the outpouring of support. We start to wonder if maybe she hid her fears and worry. 
And then…It happens…We become a mother. It is now that we truly understand. It is now that we thank our mother with a true and honest form of gratitude that brings tears to our eyes and heartbreak to our soul. Why did we not see this before and tell her everyday all along the way? So we try to make up for it. And in every action of our own for our children we see her. We feel her. We need her. We are learning and she did it perfectly so it is to her advice we turn. It is to her we learn. Our Mother. 
My story changes here. I had just begun to tell my mother how much I appreciated her. I had just begun to understand. I had only started to say Thank you. The true thank you from the bottom of my soul kind of thank you that she deserved. I had only begun. I had just started learning. Learning how to care for tiny people. Care for those people the way my mother did for me, long before I could even remember. I needed her so. I needed her to help me bring my sidekick #2 into the world and I needed her there to teach me. To help me learn to raise these little ones to be great, kind, loving big ones one day. I need my mother. I need her so much sometimes that I feel her void like an angry volcano in my soul. 
And then I wonder, as I watch those I love around me. What will I do when I am older, my kids are all grown and the house is quiet. I will surely need my mother then. I will need her to help me fill the silence. I will need her there to share my love with. I will need her to have the conversations and to help make sure my dress is just right when my sidekicks are walking down the aisle. I will need her there to share tears of joy when grand-babies come to play. I will need her then too. If I had her then, I would have great big years of memories and won’t those memories just add to my love? Or do they add to the heartache and the missing of our Mother later in life?
I think it is this…we need our Mother. No matter the stage of our life,of the time we got to spend. We need our Mother from day one to our very last day. Mother.
I wish I could tell you today just how thankful I am for you. I wish I could tell you that I see the sacrifices that you made me for me. I wish I could thank you for all of the fibs you told me just to help keep me happy in a world that is so cruel. I wish I could tell you I’m doing it right. I think I have this Mothering thing down….most days. I wish I could tell you just how much you taught me. I wish I could tell you that I want to be just like you and I’m trying. I am trying really hard everyday to do just that. You did good Mom. You were the very best and I am so thankful for you. I need you today. I hope you know that. I need you every single day.
I love you! Happy Mother’s Day (and Birthday soon!)
