Motherhood is like a National Geographic story. No worries

Distance, needs change, but relationship doesn’t

The room is pitch-black, aside from the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. The house is silent except the heavy breathing of my sleeping sons on either side of me. I contemplate going to sleep too, but I’m just not that tired. I reach for my phone instead and smile when I hear the voice on the other line.

I pull up the covers, whisper into the receiver, and laugh like a little girl in church. Who knew, at 31, I’d be having these after-hours phone rendezvous with my mom? We recount old stories, laugh with the perspectives we now have, and pray together. She always asks me not to get off, but as a gesture of the highest love there is, she ultimately prefers I do what I have to.

As I shut my eyes, feeling my children’s limbs carelessly touching mine, I remember when my feet were the ones seeking my mama in the middle. Her closeness gave me peace, and I needed her in a way that burst my heart wide open and straight up scared me.

In these quiet moments, I feel grateful for the mom I’ve had my whole life, and honored by my own motherhood, although sometimes I’m surprised I’m here. It reminds me of a nature show I watched when I was little about bears.

The mama was with her new cub, and you could clearly see love in the gentle way she nuzzled the baby bear with her nose. They emerged from the cave weeks later, and she not only taught the babe to look for food, she also played. She was affectionate and sensitive, and wrestled around in a way you could easily imagine them rolled up in sheets on a bed, cuddling. I was totally relating, when the narrator broke it to me hard.

“The cubs leave their mothers around two years of age,” he said plainly, as if it wasn’t the most heartbreaking news there is. My heart fell to my stomach, and a lump rose to my throat. I didn’t understand how it was possible. I asked my mom about it, and she said it’s true, it happens, and it’s okay.

I didn’t believe that last part one bit, but as nature would have it, it even happened to me. I somehow transformed from the little girl who so intensely craved and needed her mother’s presence into a mom, and now my own children feel that way about me.

Without much contemplation, I moved out of my mom’s bed one day, then out of her home, and even out of her country and state. It happened as naturally as it did on “National Geographic.”

Now it’s me packing lunches, getting backpacks ready and looking for shoes. While I do, I try to steal a few moments to talk to my mom. It’s now my kids who do the pestering as soon as the phone rings. My mom remembers all too well, and laughs on the other line when she tells me to call her later.

The ways I need my mom have changed throughout the years, but she always gives me exactly what’s right. In this season, it’s her laughter, understanding and friendship.

In the darkness of my 6-yearold’s room, squished together in bed, I take my phone out one more time before falling asleep. Although I’m ready for bed, I’m not quite through with my mom. I somehow need her to know all the ways I feel about her, and how she still makes my heart erupt with admiration and love.

I draft quickly, “Thank you for being my mom.”

But if I was being more specific I’d say, “I’ll always remember the pancakes you made me on the weekends, and how you poured the milk in my cereal just right. I remember all the times you clothed me in pretty dresses and ruffled socks, and crossed streets while holding me tight.”

And even more, I really mean, “Thank you for always speaking to me with kindness and listening to me with understanding. And although I now know how to give myself reassurance, and to look for direction within, thank you for being beside me still.”

There isn’t a purer, more timeless love than that of a mother, and I’m honored to be on both sides of it.