In the 1900s, Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children. Sacrifice is an incomputable and inept word in the description of what we mothers do in this wonderful thing called motherhood. There are so many ways that we give but I am floored to think of my mothering as “an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy”.

In many ways, as a stay-at-home mom, I’ve often in the past been reminded of the sacrifice I made of all the possibilities of professional endeavors that I could have pursued, in exchange to stay home with my children. I have not once viewed it as a sacrifice. I knew what was at stake in bringing my children into the world and given the opportunity to walk that path, to be present at every milestone even as tiny as chewing their food, I jumped right in. From righting the boo-boos when they stumbled, to wiping snot of endless source, I wanted all of that. I didn’t think of it as giving anything up for the moments I so preciously cherish. The sleepless nights, while then was excruciating, now is something of a memory I miss as it was of urgency and depth of their need for my touch, my voice, mine.

As they grew up though, more and more mothering challenges presented themselves to me like ants to honey. “I don’t feel connected to any friends,” said my seven-year-old in tears. Though she was well liked and got along with her peers, she felt inept and a loneliness that none of my company as the one person who knows all of her could cure. Then, I wanted to give something up. Give something up to take the pain away but I was trapped in my locus. My youngest, at five, came home in heavy tears because she lost a dojo (a behavior modification tool at school). She was disappointed in herself for not following the rules and I understood how deeply this meant to her little mind. Again, there was nothing I could sacrifice to take that moment of pain and loss in her mind away. I comforted them both and offered my best guessed advice. I believe in years to follow I will be inundated with more challenges that I cannot solve for them. I will wish to sacrifice.

As I watch my children grow bigger and stronger, I watch my body change and grow unwittingly. Though I struggle with it’s acceptance, this hasn’t occurred to me as a sacrifice for having born two children of my body, as I’ve been repeatedly told, rather I rush to pivot to the thought that this is the beautiful body that brought two beautiful lives into this world, it is mine, it is of them.

This is a day we celebrate mothers’ sacrifices but I immerse myself in thoughts that this is a day I rejoice in the tears and snot that I have wiped, bedtime conversations to mend aching hearts, food that fills them with a taste only from their momma and all the little and big moments to come. Today I celebrate the being of a mother.