As a Mama

When I wake up at sunrise, the first thing I see is your handprint, on the glass of the window.

Evidence of you is everywhere. Not just in the colorful paintings hung haphazardly with scotch tape on the dining room walls, but in the crumbs left under your chair after breakfast. And when I am cooking and reach for a spice that was stored on the lower shelves and can't find it, I know you were cooking too, and borrowed it, and it will be tucked under the couch or in some other cupboard.

It is impossible to forget your presence. Even when you are not with me, I can flex my fingers and imagine what it would feel like with your small hand pressed in mine. I can picture what you must be doing without me, and the bounce of your long hair, which never stays in a ponytail for very long.

You changed me in ways I could never have anticipated. My body, yes, stretched and contracted mostly back to its original state, except the belly button, which has never been the same. But my spirit was equally stretched and never went back to the place before someone called me Mama. Moments I would have previously cursed become opportunities for gratitude. Messes are unavoidable. Control is an illusion. Quiet is more valuable than ever before.

I am walking with billions of women who make this same journey. There is really nothing extraordinary about cuddling an infant or wiping the nose of a toddler. Answering endless questions, and teaching them whatever you know to keep them alive for the next generation. It has always been done and will always be done, until there is nothing of the world left.

But as each generation grows and repeats the process, we are surprised at how much it means to us, until the surprise of it fades and it becomes too much of the way we are to remember how it used to be.