I'm crazy--nuts--psycho--off my rocker--on drugs--not on drugs--a drunk--sober...

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  I've technically been a mother since August of 1973.  That's 35 years.  If you do anything else for 35 years you are pretty much considered to be an expert in your field.

But Motherhood isn't like that.  It doesn't matter how long you have actually been a mother; the longer you do it, the more you realize what you DON'T know.

When my daughter called to tell me that she and her husband were splitting up, I didn't know what to say except cry with her.  All my years of mothering and all the things I had learned never taught me the answer to that one.  But crying is a good answer, and my daughter appreciated my tears on her behalf.

When my daughter called to tell me that she and her husband were getting back together, I didn't know what to say.  I realized, it was HER life and she would have to live with her decisions, just like I did.  And so I told her that she had given me very happy news, and that, apparently, was the correct answer. 

Sometimes, when mothers 'wing it', we get lucky.

But I was a mother before I had my daughter.  In 1972 I was a frightened teenage girl who found herself pregnant.  I had some very real decisions to make in a short time.

I knew that the chances of me and my child-to-be having a 'good' life were pretty slim, especially since the father of the baby was on a major career path at the local car wash.  I knew, because the mother hormones were starting to kick in, that I wanted my child to have a chance to get all the good things from life that I probably wouldn't be able to give, considering how young I was.

So, I made the decision to give my baby up for adoption.

For the rest of my pregnancy I strove to do all the things to give the baby growing inside me the healthiest of starts.  I ate healthy, took my doctor-prescribed vitamins, slept and exercised and even took Lamaze classes so he could enter the world without drugs.

I was 17 years old when he was born.  I made sure he had all his fingers and toes and then I said good-bye to him.

But I learned very quickly that when you are a Mother, your heart never says good-bye.  You may send your child to kindergarten, you may send your child to the military, you may even send your child to their chosen spouse, but in your heart, they are always there.

Even if you have sent them away to live with someone else.

Always loved, always sheltered, always cared for.  In my heart.

Oh, we learn to go on, because that is what Mothers do.  After all, there are still bills to pay and life to live.  The ache in our hearts becomes another thing we learn to deal with, because that is what Mothers have been doing since Eve had the first child.

Then you become a Grandparent, and your heart wants to explode from the wonder and the joy of it all.

But this Mother's Day, just like all the rest of them since 1973, is going to find me contemplating the hole in my heart once again.

I'll talk joyfully on the phone to my daughter and my grandchildren, and I will proclaim that the cards and the flowers are the best ones I've ever gotten, because that is what Mothers do.

But when I am alone, when there is no one around to see me but maybe the cats, I will once again feel the achy place in my heart that I have lived with for 35 years. 

And I will smile, because I know, even after all these years, that I still made the best decision that I could have for a baby boy I gave birth to.

Because, you know, that is what Mothers do.

And I am a Mother.