Who you gonna call?

There is something special, almost powerful, in realizing that without me, there wouldn’t be a –plus three- in the title of this blog. (Okay, I’ll admit that my husband had something to do with it as well!)

For nine months each, actually almost nine and a half months for number 1, I have carried these children, while they were growing inside of me.

I have performed the most exhausting fitness performance of my life by birthing them (all natural, without any kind of doping may I add), not once, not twice, but three times.

I have had (and sometimes still have) countless broken nights in which I nourished and comforted my little peanuts in the dark, cold night, while the rest of the town was in a deep sleep.

I have changed enough diapers to fill a small landfill (so sorry about that, but cloth was not for me).

And now I can sit back, have my kids cook breakfast for me, have one of them hang out the laundry to dry or mow the lawn. It feels so good!

Yet when they board the school bus in the morning, only the youngest one still gives me a kiss: the boys only kiss me in the house, with no witnesses other than siblings.

I was so extremely essential in their lives, truly the center of their universe.

Now that they are older, more responsible and more mature, they become more and more independent.

Slowly, but surely other people, other things, will fill their universe. More and more they increase the distance to the nest.

Letting go is hard, but also very fulfilling: I was there and needed for the entire process: I carried them, birthed them, fed them, raised them.

I know I haven’t seen anything yet: they are only ten, twelve and fourteen years old, but seeing them so confidently moving further and further away from the nest, solving their own problems, working their first jobs, having their first dates, is kind of cool.

Cool enough to sit backIMG_5920 with a steaming mug of tea in my hands, observing my ‘peanuts’ as independent, strong, young human beings.

I smile at the words on my mug: “ ‘Mom’ is such a very small word for something that means ‘everything in the world.’

The moment doesn’t last long: “Mama, where is……?” (Fill in the blanks here: really, anything works!)

 

I smile. That’s right, kids, no matter what distance, you’ll still ultimately come back to your mom. Because only mama knows.

Time to make dinner. I forgot what the magic ingredient was for that delicious soup. But I know someone who will know, more than three-thousand miles away.

I pick up the phone.

– “Hi mam, it’s me.”

 

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Happy Mother’s Day!

Edith Schriever

About Edith Schriever

I am a Maine-igrant from the Netherlands. While my scientist husband fell in love with the beautiful research institute here, I fell in love with Mount Desert Island. Mountains, ocean, wild life, peace and quiet! A culture change? Yes, a bit. Americans are not at all like the Jerry Springer audience I saw on TV when living in the Netherlands, well, at least not everyone. Portions are big and toilets small and low; I have learned to embrace the cultural differences.