Motherhood is a beautiful gift. Whether you only held your baby in your womb or you held them in your arms and had to let them go home to the Lord, motherhood is eternal. We are forever their mothers.
We honor you today as you hold onto the experiences you shared that serve as a constant reminder of the gift we were given, to be called mother. Some women never felt a kick from inside their womb or the feeling of her baby's heartbeat against her chest.
We honor you because you are still a mother.
When I was pregnant, I longed desperately to see my child, constantly praying that he was ok. I did everything I could to protect him and loved him more than I loved myself even though I had never physically seen or touched him. I was not just pregnant with life, I was pregnant with love.
I knew immediately that motherhood was the most beautiful gift I would ever receive.
I have come to learn that this gift is not always wrapped neatly with a bow. Sometimes the gift is left bare and the bow has been ripped to pieces leaving the gift easily misunderstood as a curse. When my son passed to the next life, I wondered "why me?" "why my child"? I wondered what I had done to deserve this. My grief threatened to steal my gratitude for the gift that I received. No matter how brief, my son was still a beautiful gift that made me better for having experienced love so pure. Regardless of the days spent sobbing into a pillow after my loss, there is nothing in my life that I cherish more than the gift of motherhood. There is no amount of grief or pain that would make me want to erase the beautiful memories that we shared.
There are emotions that I have felt as a mother that no other experience in life could replicate...love in it's purest form and indescribable joy. My son was special, like many of the children who had short physical lives- they were all so special. Sometimes, I have to ask myself if he was human at all or if he was truly an angel on earth.
Whether angel or human, he was sent to me. He is mine...given to me by the Creator who called him home- home where we will all eventually return. I know we will be together again in the blinking of an eye. I still grieve, but I have made the choice not to let my grief paralyze me.
I am still his mother.
The old saying is truer now more than ever, "there's no love like a mother's love."
A mother's love is unconditional, uncompromising, and unabated. Time nor space can take away the love shared between mother and child. Not even death can weaken the bond. In fact, I know that I think of my son now after his passing, even more than I did when he was physically present. When he was here, I thought of him several times throughout the day, but now I think of him nearly every second of every day. Over time, the thoughts have stopped being filled with pain but are now full of love and gratitude. I feel his love and it fills me. I am full of love.
The love that lived in our children still lives all around and in us.
We are still mothers.
A mother's love is eternal, a connection between souls destined to accompany one another through this life and the next.
So what do you do when you can no longer physically see or touch your beloved?
How do you mother a child no longer in the physical form?
Their soul didn't die. The essence of who they are still exists. They merely passed from this existence to the next.
We are still their mothers. And there is still mothering to do.
Society mistakenly views motherhood as a physical relationship. But motherhood does not rely on what is seen. There is a relationship and responsibility that starts with the unseen. We call pregnant women "mothers to be." But that is incorrect. We become mothers the moment life is breathed into the soul in our womb. Though we cannot see our children in our womb, the love is felt. We think of our child day and night, constantly wondering what they are feeling and what it will be like when we finally have the chance to hold them in our arms. They are enveloped in darkness while we stand in the light awaiting our chance to see the beauty come forth. From the time their soul is placed in our care, our entire thought process is altered. In fact, our dna changes as we prepare to bring forth God's gift.
Through the gift of motherhood God allows us to have a glimpse of the love He has for us. To practice feeling life being under our care and complete responsibility. We are in a sense standing in for God but we are not God. We are His chosen ones, appointed to bring forth and care for His creation for a predetermined period of time.
For most of their lives we believe that we are supposed to teach them about life, but I have realized that it is them that were sent to teach us. Their purpose was breathed into them while they were in our wombs and just as their dna mixed with ours causing a shift in our very existence, so too did their purpose intermix with ours. They are forever a part of us and they live on in us.
We are still mothers.
I could feel myself morphing into something completely different after my loss. My soul was trying to escape my body and it almost did. And though I survived, parts of me that were not meant to stay left when my child left.
The trauma of loss once again altered my dna upon the physical departure of my beloved. But they were never meant to stay. None of us are. This physical existence is temporary but our souls are eternal. They have shed their physical bodies and returned to the true light, our Creator. Just as we were hopeful for them to come forth from the darkness of the wombs, our children are hopeful for the day that we fulfill our purpose and come forth from the darkness of the world back to the originator that we all received our light from. Just like when they were in our wombs, we longed for them and wondered if they'd be ok. We must rest on our belief that they are better than ok. They are in paradise feeling God's peace.
We are still their mothers and in due time we will be together again.
Time is an illusion. It is long and short concurrently. Everyday, we are one day closer to our reunion and none of us know how many days we have left, so we must take the opportunity each day to impact this world in honor of our babies. With gratitude in our hearts, we can make the choice to honor the gift of guardianship, that has been entrusted to us. We are still the guardians of our children's purpose, their legacy, their soul.
We are still their mothers throughout eternity. We carry them forward. Love is a force that cannot be extinguished or conquered. Love is eternal, an unbreakable bond and not even death can take a mother's love away.