for Mom

I'm breaking the silence here because I'm thinking about my mom.  I don't have a lot of photos from my growing up years of me with my mom.  Like most moms, she was the one behind the camera instead the subject in the photo.  Here are a couple that capture some simple moments.

I say "simple moments", but I know that is far from an accurate way to title any moment for a mom.  There is nothing simple about a trip to Disneyland and the beach in California with young kids, especially when you are pregnant.

Here's another one, probably from a family reunion picnic or Stake "Lagoon Day," judging by that bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the table.  Again, nothing simple about being anywhere with a new baby.

SCC just stood by me and looked at these photos and asked, "Mom, is that you?"  My first instinct was to correct her and say, "No.  That's MY mom!" but then I realized that she was looking at the little girls in the pictures.  Yes, those little girls are me.  For many years, when I flipped through photos like these in my baby book, I too would notice the children first.  I'd look for me and my sisters, try to remember what I was doing, what I was thinking at the time.  But when I look at these photos now, I see the mom.  I look at her eyes and the way she stands, the way she holds me, the way she reaches for one of her daughters.  I wonder what she must have been thinking at the time, though, it's almost easier than remembering my own little girl thoughts.  Easier because I imagine her thoughts are much like my own.  

And then I find a picture of her in a different role: Grandmother.  The woman here holds my child with those same arms, looks out with those same eyes.  It is the same woman who, in reality, still holds me much of the time.  Still worries, still gives.  And most of the time, despite my efforts to honor her for it all, I am still the little girl who needs her.

Part of me waits for the day when I outgrow my girl-shoes and reach tall enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the woman who gave me life, the way she now, in my eyes, stands with her mother.

Yet I know that with each bit of motherhood that brings me closer to knowing what she knows, feeling what she feels, I am forever part-way in her arms.

"Mom" is a role that is never outgrown.  It stretches and somehow strengthens where it should become too thin to hold on.  There is always more love to give, more room for teaching and forgiving.  The honor, for me, is sharing a piece of that sacred title of "mother" with my own.