Of all the rights of women the greatest is to be a Mother.

Many people start new beginning at New Years. Well, that has never worked for me. My birthday is right after the new year and I'm not in the mood to be my best on MY day. But this Mother's Day, I felt that maybe this would be a good day for me to make a new start. There is something about being appreciated as a mother on a day when my mind turns to the amazing examples of mother that I have been blessed with that humbles me to the point of wanting to try a little harder to be a bit better.

Before I had a child of my own I didn't realize the significance of every woman receiving a gift on mother's day. Not until I donned the slightly chafing robe of motherhood did I realize that mothering is not a cloak slipped on easily and seamlessly, neither can it be set aside or discarded on whim. Motherhood already resides within each woman. Birthing a child simply gives me one more very precious incentive to learn to use the untried legs of Motherhood that I possess.
Even now I hesitate to articulate my feelings on motherhood because my legs are often unsteady, and the walk has the the most breathtaking moments of joy and pain so far in my life.

I can't believe how humbling it is to make a life. To literally make one flesh out of the eternal family my husband and I began. I also never anticipated how physical the sacrifice would be.

Finally the miracle arrives. My Chiara was born and I thought I could do this a hundred times more. But I was unaware of how much more I would need to sacrifice and how much more I would be blessed to love. How my capacity to nurture the life of this tiny person would develop something I had been so unaware of in myself. I am only beginning to feel like a mother. It happened sometime between the pain of nursing (hey, there is really a reason the scriptures use that example of a mother not being able to forget her suckling child...can you say PAINFUL), the first smiles, the midnight, one, two, three, and four o'clock awakenings, and cuddles, airplane, a giggle, sobbing, and a story.
Chiara called out in her sleep and I went to her. She calmed as I rocked her and as she lay in my arms I promised that I would always be her mama, I would always help her in anyway I can. I would do anything for her to be happy. She didn't ask that of me, she never manipulated or coerced. But I made her and she needs me. And I am Mother.

Learning to walk is never easy and is accompanied by painful falls. That's why for me Mother's Day still means MY mother. It means Eve, Hannah, Mary, and Marjorie Pay Hinkley. They learned to run and jump and dance as mothers. So every woman on Mother's Day can accept her gift and, regardless of muscle definition, stand leaning on the Mothers of the past. And for me Mother's Day is a new start to becoming the mother I wish to be.

And it doesn't hurt that a very sexy man woke me up with this...Nothing like unconditional love and true appreciation to sweeten any journey :)