Happy Mother's Day

my mother with me, isn’t she lovely?

I had several different ideas for what I wanted to talk about with you today. One of them being how I was going to buy this and hope for my husband to make me creme brulee for Mother’s Day. But then I was catching up on reading everyone’s blogs last night and came across Danni’s post. She posted a beautiful picture of her mother, who was just diagnosed and treated for uterus cancer. The family is waiting today for results and I can’t imagine how it has been for them. If you get a chance, stop by with some well wishes.

And have you seen Justin Hackworth’s 30 strangers project? All shots of mothers and daughters, and it gets you thinking. I have been thinking about mothers in general, and about mine. I have the most amazing, most giving mother. And I like that as I get older I look more like my mother. My nose gets red in the cold like hers, we have the same wrinkles in the same places, and we stay up way too late at night.

Do you remember when you first felt like an adult? A real adult? I can pinpoint it exactly. It was four years ago. And there was no particular reason, I just felt like now it was time for me to help shoulder the weight of being a grown-up along with the other grown-ups in the world. But so far, rather than be a burden, it has been an honor to be included. To watch how gracefully, how naturally women do this grown-up thing and to be a part of it. To join women who are reading books and having living room dance parties and making lunches and noticing needs and sending sweet notes and cheerfully meeting the job requirements.

So many of you are my living proof that we women have certain things we do well. Certain God-given abilities. I think that’s how we become good women, by doing things, one by one, that we didn’t think we could do (and cleaning up things we didn’t think we could clean up). And I like to think of Mother’s Day as a tribute to that. Happy Mother’s day to all the mothers out there!