Mother's Day

Mother's Day. My first Mother's Day as a mother. I didn't think it would happen when I was creaky in the knees and starting to grey at 41, but it was a memorable day nonetheless. E blessed us with a little extra sleep this morning, so I actually read two sections of the paper. And R made breakfast, which is always a treat. At church, E flirted, squinty-smiled, and shook fingers (a new fascination) with the row behind us. The opening song involved kids singing and doing the hand motions for the song L-O-V-E. Suddenly I was crying. Being a mother sinks in a different times and to different levels for me, and today it obviously settled in pretty deep. I generally spend Mother's Day with my own mom, most recently in conjunction with my sister as a girl's weekend. And at church, I would look around at the other moms who would smile in response to the nice sermon praising their virtues, and I would think "Next year. Next year, I will be a mother." Now it's finally true -- I am a mother. An obvious thing, I know, but some days it just seems so matter-of-fact, while other days it really hits me in a "wow" kind of way. I look back to when R and I were dating, and I could not fathom that 8 years later, we would be newly home from China with our daughter. Sometimes, it actually seems quite unreal and even absurd. But generally it all fits into place in such a normal, everyday way. I thought a lot about mothers today, of course, but thinking about E's birth mother throws me into such disarray. For me, there is no right way to feel about her, because I will probably never know her story. Grateful seems misguided. Grateful that a child was abandoned? That would seem the ultimate insult. And it's hard not to resent a government or family that pushes women into horrible choices. But do I even know she was pushed? I try so hard not to project what I think I would feel or do, but I always think about her with the deepest sorrow. I want her to know that E is beautiful and strong -- full of mischief, personality and endless affection. I want her to be reassured that E is healthy, happy and will receive education and opportunity that she might not have had in her home country. It all comes down to that word -- might. Her birth mother certainly must wonder what might have happened to her daughter. And I will always wonder what her life might have been like if she'd been raised in China by her birth mother or another family. Always wondering about what might have been...

But today was about what is real right now, not about what might have been. We played, and giggled and walked endlessly in the apparently not-so-frightening grass. E ate a real child's portion of lasagna and drank a decent amount of milk at a neighborhood restaurant (for us and our eating issues, this was huge). And we enjoyed a wonderful day as a family. Now I'm crying again, but I'm smiling too. All I can say is thank you to E for making me a mom.