Mother's Day

 

 

Mother’s Day

Lauren Gilley

This is not a day to celebrate the birthing of children. Being a mother doesn’t earn a day. This day is for all the things that Hallmark can’t fit inside a card. This day is for what can’t be summed up in a poem. This day is for the four a.m.s and eleven p.m.s. The Sharpies and markers and crayons and pencils. It’s for the late-night runs and the early morning departures. It’s for the kissed knees that taste of Bactine; the smoothed hair and lipstick prints. It’s for the honeys and babys and sweeties and darlings. It’s for hand-stitched Halloweens and too-generous Christmases; the crepe streamer birthdays and tooth fairy dollars. It’s for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and “you can be anything you want to be.” It’s for the dreams, all our shiny dreams, reflected back to us in misty eyes. It’s for the pride when we didn’t earn it; the love when we don’t deserve it; the gentleness when we are raging. It’s for teaching us to be kind; teaching us how to let go; teaching us that somewhere in the world, we’ll always have a home. It’s for all those hours that were about us, and not them. It’s about green feed buckets, hay in the trunk of an Oldsmobile, the smell of horses in their houses. It’s about the first pony, the first horse, the first show, rag in hand. It’s about blues and tears and panic attacks; cookies and Gatorade and remembering sunscreen. It’s about the hard days – the really hard ones – and blue tarps on arena sand and the smell of solvent in Auburn’s waiting room and understanding that, in our own kid ways, we’ve lost something as precious to us as we are to them. It’s about laughing, and crying, and staying up late to proofread. It’s about all those meals, and all those hugs, and all those bald conversations about life kicking us in the shin. This day is not about mothers. It’s about moms, and mamas, and mommies. And it’s about all that love that defines the difference.