I Love You, Mom

According to family legend, my relationship with my mother did not start well. Just after I was born, I developed a bad case of eczema. It was determined that I was allergic to my mother’s breast milk, along with most of the baby formulas on the market back then. While my mother was undoubtedly battling feelings of helplessness and even despair, I was breaking out in a rash all over my little baby body. And all my hair fell out. My mother says that she remembers thinking, “This child and I are never going to get along.” Fortunately, my hair grew back and my relationship with my mother has improved steadily ever since. Aside from those few years during puberty, when I would burst into tears every time she spoke to me.n nToday, we enjoy a warm, loving relationship – at least, we do from my perspective.n nMy mother is my hero.n nWe have lived very different lives. She married just after college and spent the next forty years raising children. I spent twenty-five years or so in Corporate America and became a single mother at age forty.n nI used to say that I wanted to be just like my father – as I steadfastly pushed myself up the corporate ladder – but that I could never hope to be as amazing as my mother.n nShe raised ten children, surviving the loss of one at a terribly young age. She relocated our family four times, as my father’s career progressed, each time settling us all in a new town, making new friends and helping us to do the same.n nShe organized school and sports schedules, laundry and grocery shopping. Through it all, she taught us what we needed to know to be independent adults: How to cook our meals and sew our own clothes; how to think, reason and love.n nNow that I am a mother myself, my awe knows no bounds.n nEach time I have a trying day with the boys, I think about my mother. What would she have done?n nWhat would I do, if I had eight more of these mysterious creatures running amok in my house?n nMy mother has taught me that motherhood is equal parts joy and determination. Or, perhaps, it is 100% of both.n nWhile we have not followed the same path in life, we have found common ground. We share a love of travel and the arts, and a soul-deep commitment to family. 916796929303n nJoyfully, my mother has become one of my dearest friends.n nThe one who comes through in a crunch.n When I had to move from Connecticut to Boston in the middle of a blizzard, she drove down from Upstate New York and packed through the night with me. When I told her I was adopting two young boys from the foster care system, she hosted a baby shower and gave me a double stroller. I could write an entire book about this stroller and my attachment to it. When I was trying to take the boys on our first big vacation together, my mother drove three hours to Boston, to make the trip with us.n nWe are travel buddies.n nWith my mother, I have explored the back roads of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We have trained across Canada and the Swiss Alps, where we experienced the breathtaking majesty of the Matterhorn. We’ve sipped champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower and pina coladas on the beach in the Bahamas. n nAnd now, we take these trips with two young, male traveling companions.nnMy mother is very patient. As Mother’s Day approaches, I am intensely grateful for this amazing woman, who has shaped so much of my life. I love you, Mom.n nAnd I send happy wishes to my six sisters, my two sisters-in-law and all my wonderful friends who are now mothers themselves. No matter where I travel or what I accomplish, motherhood is still the very best gig in town.n nHappy Mother’s Day to all!