Thoughts on Motherhood {or Flowers for Mom}

by Dotti

There are many watershed moments for those who are mothers. First, of course, is the moment of bringing a new life into this world. Even though we're proud and happy, we cry when we send our children to preschool, then kindergarten, then high school … and so on.

This time of year, there are mothers everywhere getting ready to see their children graduate from high school or college, ready to leave the nest. It’s truly a watershed moment for any mother. I well remember the heartache I felt all summer long in between my only daughter’s high school graduation and her departure for a college that was six hours away. Yikes! And the four hours it took me to stop crying as we returned home after depositing her at her dorm.

So when I read about or hear friends talking about being at this crossroad in their lives, my heart goes out to them all. We spend their whole lives from birth until high school graduation preparing our children to be independent but when that time comes, we want to hang on, we don’t want to let them go. We wonder where, wherever did those years go?

My mother is a strong, determined woman, one who has relied on her strong faith through all of life’s challenges including motherhood. I can remember two watershed experiences in my own lifetime that I often recall at this time of year.

My father was very old-fashioned, a second-generation Italian and he had much of the Old World in him. He didn’t see any point in sending me to college since he declared I was just going to get married and have children. No, my mother said. Our daughter is going to college. And so it was, my parents drove me from northeastern Pennsylvania to central Kentucky where they deposited me at my dorm. My mother told me years later, when I took my own daughter to college, that after they left me, they said hardly a word to one another for the whole 700-mile trip home. And by the way, there wasn’t a prouder father than mine at my college commencement!

Fast forward five years later. After college, I moved home for a year to work and save some money before moving back to Kentucky to join my then-fiance. But you know what they say about the best laid plans ... After quitting my job, as I was preparing to move, we broke off the engagement. My father, ever true to his Old World protective instincts declared that I would not go to Kentucky. My mother said, no. She must go. It’s time for her to make her own way in the world.

When the day came for me to get on the plane to fly to Lexington, my father couldn’t {wouldn’t?} take me to the airport, so my mother drove me alone. Those were the days when you walked across the tarmac and mounted the outside steps to the plane. {I think only the President does that now.} When I reached the top of the steps, I turned to wave at my mother and I could tell she was crying buckets, as was I. Yes, she was strong. But she also struggled to let me fly from the nest, just as I struggled to let my daughter fly from the nest.

Just as mothers everywhere are struggling to let their sons and daughters fly from the nest.

This is what it means to be a mother. But isn’t it grand?