If I Should Have a Daughter...

This is a belated entry - a tribute to Mother's Day. This year I was given some "mother-to-be" cards, as well as a bouquet of flowers and somehow-quite-fitting watermelon  from Josh, of course.

This Mother's Day, especially, I gave closer reflection to the mothers of friends and dear family members who are no longer with us, but whose spirits continue to work and love through their children. What a mother instills in her child is part of her legacy and is truly a gift to those that are touched by her offspring. Just two days before, I became fully aware of  how much the soul of a mother is eternal. Once a mother, always a mother - even when her physical body has passed on. 

Many of my closest friends are mothers, but they are also professionals, wives, volunteers, daughters, sisters, girlfriends, homemakers, protectors, and educators. Being a mother is only a facet of a complex individual. This year, I looked at the women I work with in the hospital, and I was astonished at how many of them work so hard on the labor and delivery unit, assisting other women in the final part of their journey to motherhood. Some of these nurses are mothers and some are not, but regardless, they are "mothering the mother" into a transformation.

Last year, on the way to New York to celebrate Annabelle's first birthday, Josh showed me a TED TALK that featured Sarah Kay. She is a slam poet "that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."

As I watched Kay's performance on the plane, I was moved by the fact that her words were coming from a hypothetical place - she begins by saying,  "if I should have a daughter." The first time I listened to this poem  I was not pregnant nor did I know that by the same time, the very next year, I would have a daughter of my own. I loved the performance by Kay last year, but now, with a daughter on the way, her words mean even more.

Happy Mother's Day -  to all mothers - the hypothetical, the expecting, the mothers who are "in the midst of it all," and to those who watch us dearly from a more soulful place.