Mothers

Today is Mother’s Day and I have spent this last week thinking about mothers and being a mother.  When I was a little girl I remember sitting in primary and singing songs about how beautiful and wonderful mothers are.  I had to agree.  I have the best mom on the planet.  She is feisty, strong willed, smart, beautiful, talented, loving and soft hearted all of the traits that helped her raise 7 kids and of course raise my dad.  As I got older and turned into a teenager I still looked at my mom with love and respect but I took her for granted.  I was so caught up in being a teenager and doing the teenager thing that I missed all the little things that my mom did for me that I let go unnoticed.  Now that I’m a mom myself I see all that she did and still does  and all that she sacrificed so that I could have the things I wanted and the foundation in the gospel that I grew up with.  I am who I am today because of that amazing lady!  She’s 92 now and her memory isn’t what it used to be but I still know that she is there for me and that she is my champion in whatever challenges I face.  She has a strong should to cry on and a tender heart to comfort my sad one.  She listens to me every day and tells me to keep smiling and be strong.  I love my MOM!

Being a mom you learn quickly that each of your kids are different.  They each have their own unique personalities, dispositions and body types.  Which is great because it would be really boring if all your kids looked the same and acted the same right?  You also learn that there are no instruction manuals that come home with you from the hospital that are written just for raising that baby.  You learn what works by a process of elimination.  You quickly learn that the way you were able to calm one baby isn’t going to work for the new one and that one baby may love to snuggle and be held and the next one doesn’t want to hug you at all.  All you can do is try different things until you find the one that works best.  And so it goes from day to day, year to year and it doesn’t ever stop.  We never stop trying to figure out how to help our kids and how to teach them even when they are adults. 

When we first moved into our current ward I remember sitting in Relief Society and thinking I’m not supposed to be here.  All these ladies told stories about how great their families were, how they had family home evening every week, and how they had daily scripture study and prayer.  I remember sitting there thinking, I’m lucky to just get my kids to primary how am I supposed to get all this other stuff done too?  I’m never going to be good enough.  I got super discouraged and remember thinking I was failing as a mother.  I know a few who have fallen away from the church because they didn’t feel like they could measure up to what they were hearing each week in Relief Society and that it was just easier to quit going and so they did.  I wrestled with those same emotions every week.  I was not the cookie cutter LDS mom.  I didn’t cook (and I still don’t very often), I’m not crafty (that hasn’t changed), I didn’t and still don’t have a huge vegetable garden ,  I didn’t bottle food (I have now learned to make salsa and jellies that are yummy),  I can’t sew clothes or make beautiful quilts.  I got up every morning and went to work 8 hours a day.  My Saturday’s were spent cleaning my house and doing laundry and taking the kids to various sport events or lessons.  So when all these other mothers professed their grandness I felt inferior and lacking in so many ways.  But what I’ve learned over the years has helped me so much.  Here it is, are you ready?  Heavenly Father doesn’t care if you can cook, or do crafts or what your vegetable garden looks like.  All he cares about is that you are doing the very best you can to be the best mom you can possibly be.  Do you love your kids?  Do you provide them with the help and support they need?  Do you listen to them and help them work through their problems?  Are you teaching them how to be respectful and helping them learn all that they can?  Are you teaching them about the gospel and the atonement and showing them how important it all is?  Are you helping them gain their own testimonies of the gospel?  It took me a long time to realize this and it also took me a long time to realize that my Savior’s atonement was there to help me be a better mom.  I have learned that where I lack, my Savior picks up the slack and helps.  I’m not saying that I still don’t have my doubts.  I do, I have them a lot.  But when I have those doubts I know that it is the adversary trying to take me out.  He wants me to feel like I’m a failure.   He wants me to think I’ve failed my kids because if he gets me to quit or have doubts he wins. 

I had dinner the other night with seven amazing mothers.  These were the very ladies that 16 years ago I was jealous of.  They all seemed so put together.  They were the ones that I thought had the perfect families.  But as I have gotten to know these amazing mom’s I have learned that life doesn’t always hand us the cookie cutter life.  Even though we work hard to raise kids that are strong in the gospel and we give them all the love and support we can, they are still their own person and they have their free agency to make choices in their lives that will either be good or bad.  As Mom’s we can guide, counsel, love and encourage our children but ultimately it falls back to them.  Around this table sat seven women who are my very dear friends.  Each one of them has trials and setbacks that when they were younger they never thought they would have.  They have children who have gone astray, children with addiction issues, children with cheating spouses, children with strong testimonies, children who have made sacred temple covenants and are working everyday to stay strong in the gospel, children in college working hard to get an education and to choose careers that will help them later on,  children who have health issues, children who battle depression and anxiety, they’ve lost husbands  each and every one of them are battling their own little wars each and every day to keep their family together.  Countless hours are spent praying for these kids who are now almost all adults with kids of their own and even though all of these things are going on, they never stop being moms.  They never stop caring or worrying or doing all that they can to help their children get back on track.  Motherhood is a full time job and it doesn’t end when your kids grow up.  In fact I think it gets more complicated.

I’ve learned that you can’t always look at someone and think they are perfect and that they have perfect kids.  Because, every family has their issues and every mom is doing her very best to be the best she can be.  I’ve learned to not compare myself to anyone else.  I have a hard enough time handling my own issues; I can’t compare myself to anyone.  It’s taken me a long time to figure that out.

I have also learned that you don’t stop being a mom even after you lose a child.  Every day I think about Taylor.  I know he is OK and that he is with family who love him, but I can’t help worrying.  I wonder what he does all day, I wonder if he ever gets lonely and wishes he was home with us, I wonder if he is taking advantage of all that he has and is learning everything he can.  I pray for him every night.  Even though I know he is in his Heavenly Father’s care he is still my baby and I’m still his Mom and thankfully I will be his mom forever!

I still wonder if I could have done things differently when my kids were smaller.  Did I show my kids the best me and set the best example for them on how to live righteously?   I made mistakes, and I continue to make mistakes some that I regret greatly,    But at the end of the day, I did what I thought was best at the time and that’s all I could do.   I have two of the most amazing kids on the planet and I wouldn’t trade being their mom for anything.  Each one of them has their own unique and wonderful personalities and testimonies.  They have strengths that amaze me and abilities that I can only dream of and each day I thank Heavenly Father that I have them and they are mine. 

This Mother’s Day is hard.  This is my first one without Taylor.  I went to the store the other day and there were Mother’s Day cards by the registers.  I look over and the first card I saw said to my amazing mom from your son.  I just stood there looking at that card and realized that I will never be receiving another card like that.  I won’t be receiving a card from Taylor this year or ever again with something funny inside or a heartfelt message that was meant just from him to me and that makes me sad.  This Mother’s Day Morgan and Taylor aren’t going to be bantering about who did the most worked on my yearly Mother’s Day gift of cleaning the house for me while Paul cleans my windows. (Morgan I know you always did the most).   In fact I even wonder if that will happen this year.  Traditions are changing because the old ones are too hard to go through without Taylor and that kind of makes me sad.  I know it’s hard right now, but there is a part of me that hopes that someday we can go back to our old traditions the ones full of memories and we can sit around and laugh about the fun times and it won’t hurt so badly.  It’s mostly my fault they are changing right now anyway.  I hurt so much and everyone tells me that it should make me happy and that it will help in remembering Taylor, but right now it just plain hurts.  All I see and hear is how I should celebrate and go to the places he loved and feel peace, but I just can’t, every thought everything just makes me sad.   Paul and Morgan have found their way to find peace and comfort but I haven’t.  Maybe someday looking at or going to the snowy mountains won’t make me sad.  Right now I look at them and yearn for my son.

But I have to figure this out.  Morgan needs her Mom to stop being sad all the time.  She needs to have normalcy, she needs to know how important she is.  Sometimes I worry that I’m not giving her what she needs, that she feels left out or neglected because I feel so consumed with trying to deal with Taylor’s death.  I pray every night for her and I’m trying so hard to suck it up and focus.  I want her to know right here for the entire world to see that she is my angel.  She is my sweet amazing daughter and my life would be nothing if I didn’t have her.  She is one of my best friends.  I love being around her and her contagious personality.  She lights up the room and she has such a strong testimony that she just glows.  I look at her and think WOW, she is mine.  That amazing young woman is my daughter.  I have to pinch myself because it feels like a dream.   In all my childhood dreams I never imagined that I would be a mother to someone like her.  I love being Morgan’s mom!  Stick with me dolly.  We will get through this I promise.

 I’m grateful for my mom!  I’m grateful for my mother-in-law who raised an amazing son who I get to have forever!  I’m grateful for my sisters who are moms who have taught me so much.  I’m grateful for my friends who are moms for their strengths and all that I have learned from them.  I’m grateful to the mothers of Morgan and Taylor’s friends, for your example to them and for the great kids that you have.  I’m grateful to be a mom to the two best kids ever!   I’m grateful to be the other mother to some of Morgan and Taylor’s friends.  These kids bring me joy!  I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for trusting me to be a Mom and believing in me with all my faults.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s out there!  Don’t ever forget how much your Heavenly Father loves you!