Happy Mother's Day To Them

For the past 18 years, Mother's Day has been a celebration for the three of them, my sons. The ones who made me a mother. I spend the holiday doing for them because they have made me so happy.

I don't ask my three for anything, but they still make me their cards and have their dad take them to buy me my flowers.

I'm happy at home, starting the day with the cinnamon rolls they love so much, and asking them what they'd like for dinner.

Because truthfully, in the life I've had, this holiday has always felt hollow and mandatory to me... until they were born.

Mother's Day is a day spent like any other of my days; in disbelief of the gold I've been given. The diamonds of my every days -- and though I have never not begun or ended a day since they've been born thanking everything under the stars for the jackpot that has rained down on me with them as my life, on this annual celebration, I say to myself over and over, I can't believe I am their mother.

I spent Sunday staring at their faces while they talked, the way their cheeks look so soft when the sun hits them from behind, reveling in the sound of the joy in their laughs, recognizing the uniqueness of each of their smiles and how one's lip curls up only on the right. I know just how one stands with his left leg jutted out, and how the other one always points his left knee out to the side.

Mother's Day is a day of granted requests, and I wait for them to sing to me. It's what I tell them I want when they ask me what I want them to do today. I laugh and order them, "Sing me a made up song!" And they do. Each one out voluming the other in hopes of getting the loudest applause from me, and at the end of it all, with furrowed brows, they scold me and say I can't clap the same way for all of them.

So they decide they have to do it again.

Thank you for today, my children, for giving me a holiday to celebrate. Happy Mother's Day to you.

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We live in an imperfect world, and as well intended of a sentiment as Mother's Day is, for many, it brings on an overload of complexities and life circumstances. If you're someone looking for shared words to help you feel like you're not the only one struggling with this holiday, here's a magnificent post I found: via hopefulworld .org (a great community site) In Case Mother's Day is Hard for You.

xo