Mother's Day: NOT A Second Valentine's Day

This Mother's Day was actually pretty spectacular, though from the outside it might have appeared modest. I woke up and remembered that I was at my Asay grandparents' house, and remembered dipping and decorating strawberries with my lovely cousin Kenna and talking to and listening to my Grandma Asay, who somehow managed to not kill my father in his adolescence. (For that, I am very grateful.) I was later able to learn more from my Asay grandma about motherhood, who deliver a beautiful, insightful, and inclusive talk in Relief Society, and after that, I visited with and helped my Grandma Minster prepare for dinner, and we stopped in to see her mother on the way to my house. These are  ladies who are all mothers according to my "definition" of motherhood: motherhood is a calling, and all women have that calling; motherhood does not necessarily mean having two, three, six, or ten children at home to feed, clothe, and look after; motherhood is to bring, train, or raise someone up with care and affection. Guess what? Some of the best mothers have not been biological mothers at all; they reach out to other people's children (everyone is someone's child) and nurture them and teach them. To me, that is motherhood, pure and simple. 

Just because motherhood as a noun is simply defined does not mean that as an action it is easy. It is my personal belief that being a parent is the most difficult, draining occupation in the world, and I am not and have not been a parent. Motherhood and maternity? These are sacrifices, they are taxing jobs. It's always comforting to keep in mind, though, that the definition reads that a sacrifice is the surrender of something desirable for the sake of something considered as having more worth. Although extremely difficult and disheartening at times, the rewards of engaging in motherhood will ALWAYS outweigh the costs. I myself will be eternally grateful for the mothers in my life: my Grandma Asay, my Grandma Minster, Jackie, Bretta, Crelley, Laura, Melissa, Ann, and my mazza Jenny, who really, truly is a BRIGHT light in my life and who I love past the moon, to Jupiter, around Pluto, and all the back. I do not know who I would be without her; well, except that I would be different. She has taught me a lot about willingness, service, the importance of work, the gospel, self-sufficiency, priorities, passions, purpose, open-mindedness, my Heavenly Father, my divine nature and individual worth, other people, empathy, love, and motherhood and the divine calling of women. I have also learned the true value of sunscreen from her. While the last was more of a joke, I have learned a lot from her. 

What if she had not been there for me? What if she had not married my dad? What if I had not been born to her? What if she had not made the sacrifices she did? I would most likely be unloved, to be completely honest. I would have a character of much less caliber and I would wander and be lost, utterly lost. My mom is my rock, my sun, and my stars, and I can never repay her, but I can try. And, oh, I will. 

A very merry Mother's Day to all,
Scout 

"College Mom"

 Grandma, Mom, Mal

 My mom is seriously gorgeous.

One of the best tributes to mothers, I now offer this poem as a tribute to my own mother, because Billy Collins just says it so much better. I love you mom.

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.