This weekend we celebrate one of the most incredible jobs on the planet…motherhood. For those women with children it’s a day of phone calls, or cards with flowers. For those women without children it’s often a very hard day of what if’s. I had felt that pain and the yearly reminder of this day was hard.
On September 25, 1980 at 6:31am, I became a mother for the first time. It was the most amazing, daunting, incredible, scary, wonderful OMG superlative feeling I ever had. I held in my arms a 5 lb 15 oz life.
I knew at that moment that he had my heart forever. Motherhood does that. It gives us an opportunity to see that you are forever connected to someone. Partners can change, jobs can be left, homes can be transported, but there are no return policies on motherhood. You are a mother forever.
Michael Richard Zenke was born that day and so was my new job as mother.
On September 1, 1982 at 2:14 am (What mom doesn’t remember the exact minute?) Paul Francis Zenke was born. The same amazing feelings filled my heart. Those ten fingers and toes all perfect, all warm and baby fresh.
He joined his brother in being the only two people in the world that can call me by my title in the job, “Mom”.
Each career I’ve had, has had learning curves, and ups-and-downs. To say that every moment of my mothering was perfect would be to have the rosiest pair of glasses in the world on my face. I was human. I laughed with them, I cried with and for them, I yelled, I screamed, I hugged, I kissed. They were my daily reminder of life.
I was so blessed that we grew up together. Being raised with two wonderful sisters by a single parent, I didn’t know what I was doing with two sons. But, they taught me everything I needed to know. I discovered things like dinosaurs and could name every one. I could walk to the park and discover construction trucks bigger than us all. I could go to tee-ball games and cheer. I could read Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon a hundred thousand times and still go another round.
During some grade school and high school years, we were fortunate enough to live in family housing at the University of Wisconsin. Graduate students were international in nature, and my boys learned that the Koreans across the way were as interesting as the Argentinians in the next building. We made lifelong friends in those four rooms.
I often think that the blessing of raising two sons in four rooms was the key to our success as a family. We couldn’t go to bed angry. Stomping upstairs to a bedroom and hiding behind a slammed door wasn’t an option. The computer screen always faced out into the living room. Those four rooms were filled with more living and loving than any McMansion could ever be. We learned together that home wasn’t about what the walls looked like, it was about the love within the walls.
And life went on. The boys graduated from high school and off to college. Amazing watching them pack all that I’d shared for 18 years along with their stereos and video games to places far away from home.
It was during this time, actually Mother’s Day 2001, that we were all together at the China Wok Restaurant to celebrate. My boys, my sister and her daughter were all gathered around the lazy susan spinning with egg rolls and wontons.
I got teary-eyed. Ok, I was close to a sloppy cry. My elder son asked what was wrong. I replied, I don’t know why we celebrate Mother’s Day anymore. I’m not your mother. You’re both capable young men handling your lives. You don’t need a mother.
And then the magic happened. Words that I’ve held in my heart since that day were uttered.
Oh, but mom, you’ve been promoted.
Wiping a tear, I said, what are you talking about?
He said, Mom, when we were young, we needed you as the manager of our family. We needed you to worry and work out the thousands of details of our lives. You were the administrative assistant, chauffer, cook, bottle washer, financial support agent. You were good at those jobs.
You’ve been promoted.
You’re now the CEO of our family. You are our key advisor. We look to you now for wisdom, not managing. We look to you for the unconditional love you’ve always shown us. We look to you for guidance, not answers. Congratulations Mom, you’ve been promoted.
Those words have been my mantra as I reinvented my job as mother. As an empty nester, they have allowed me to realize that my forever job changed and became something more.
We often hear, ‘from the mouth of babes’. I am externally grateful for those words.
For all mothers, in whatever way we mother, whether children of our birthing, our heart, or our pets, Happy Mother’s Day.
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