Sunday, May 13, 2012

Happy Mother's Day!





This is an excerpt from Chapter 8 “Challenges of Being a Working Mom”
from my upcoming book titled Mothers Fulfilled which will be out late 2012.
    

“Pictures, journal entries, home movies are treasures and I still watch those often…but they will never replace the real face-to-face observing, remembering how soft their skin to my touch, their eyes dripping with tears, their baby smells, their wet butterfly kisses on my mouth, their exploration and wonder of the simplest things.  It is watching children for extended periods of time that remind us what joy is in case we have forgotten.

I wish, while lying with Ben, I rubbed his back more.  From when he was a toddler, he would always lift the back of his pajama top to have his back rubbed.  It soothed him and gave him great pleasure.  I did rub it a lot, but never enough.  At 17, standing over six feet tall with 34-inch pant legs, I sometimes just look at this man and try to remember his tiny frame, his bony back, my fingertips feather light touching all corners of it.  I so clearly remember the times when he asked me to rub his back, when he asked me to lay down beside him until he fell asleep, when he asked me to read just a little bit more. 

I did not draw enough with chalk in the driveway, play Star Wars with their figures, paint with my fingers, build with blocks.  I did all of it, but my point is these things are so short lived, I wish I had done more.” 
 
 Photos:  the mothers and kids in my life