I get as verklempt as the next mother but Mother’s Day mushiness is  a crime against us all.  We (yes using the royal we here) are not about the ubiquitous pastel potted plants. I will miss my mother forever. I’m hoping to be a grandmother someday. I’m not immune to the idea of a morning when I get to sleep in and have coffee handed to me.

But motherhood is not mush. It’s not for wimps. Here’s some of my mothering memories:

1. Watching Abi fly sideways off a horse at a canter, scooping her up and driving her while she vomited from the pain, to Yale-New Haven ER. Six hours, broken elbow treated.
2. Rounds of ear infections that drew me closer to my pediatrician and farther away from any natural sleep pattern.
3. Slo-mo horror of seeing Em kick at a glass door and seeing the blood spill from the cut.
4. Sitting for one very long Good Friday with Buttercup, Em’s hamster, as the tiny golden animal died and we read Treasure Island to her.
5. Trying to get out the door because we had a chance to meet President Clinton and being stopped dead when Abi dropped a glass and cut her hand. Rushing through ER and smiling as the President shook hands with my bandaged daughter.
6. Searching out the closest urgent care for Abi who had developed a red, weeping eye infection on vacation. I doled out dark glasses and antibiotics along with the sunscreen that week.
7. Calling the Fire Department to help untangle Abi’s toes from the gears of an exercise bicycle.
8. Waking up to a text message from London, Abi’s new hometown, that she had just been admitted to hospital and was recovering but there was blood everywhere. Booking a Virgin flight and spending two weeks shuttling her back and forth to get surgical dressing changed.
9. Sitting at Em’s bedside for 6 days last month as she recovered from surgery at Beth Israel in Manhattan and cried from the pain of more than 50 surgical sutures.
10. Realizing that I will never retire.

And that’s fine with me.

I know my list pales in comparison to so many mothers, friends, and worldwide. It is a day to be grateful for the strength that carries us on. I’m also grateful that I got the life opportunity to be Em and Abi’s mother.