This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You have worn motherhood for the better part of twenty years. Now your once-girlish figure bears the years of nurturing babes, and your hips wear the years of holding toddlers too tired to walk another step. You have wiped off noses and changed enough diapers to fill a landfill. Your laundry basket has been a never-ending pit, where the more you put in the machine, the more the piles overflowed.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You have watched a four-year-old, who looked far too young to be travelling anywhere without you, stand at the end of the driveway and wait for a big yellow bus. And just when you thought you’d climb onboard with her, she turned to say, with the wisdom of all her years, “I can do this on my own, Mom. You can go back to the house now.” Little did she know how you stood and watched the bus lumber down that long road until you could no longer see bright red taillights through early morning mist.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
Your once-brilliant vocabulary reduced to “No, not right now” and “Because I said so” and all the other things you swore you’d never say to your children. You logged more timeouts on your kitchen timer than penalty minutes issued in the National Hockey League. And you locked yourself in the bathroom for “just one moment of peace, please” as little fingers curled under the door and the cries of need had you wondering whether you could finish the day.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You burned the pot black when you left the stove on with the breast pump sterilizing and went for much-needed coffee at a friend’s house. And just as you remembered what you had done, you could hear sirens screaming down your street. You opened more cans of soup and ripped the tops off of Kraft dinner boxes because, really, there are just days when putting nutrition on the table every single night felt as though you were climbing Mt. Everest.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You cleaned and organized playrooms and dresser drawers. You dug Barbie shoes and rocks out of nostrils — while your kids lay spread eagle on the ground, whining like there was no tomorrow. You rode in the backs of ambulances and hauled children kicking and wailing through grocery stores. And your car looked like a warzone. Just what was that smell coming from under the seat?
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You went through childhood at breakneck speed, and before you knew it, you were staring up at your son and trying to be stern while telling him for the millionth time that he really needed to clean his room. You found dirty dishes next to the couch. And is that pizza crust crawling with ants?
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You laid your head on a pillow, every night for twenty years, and wondered whether or not the next day would be the day when you’d get it right. Whether or not the next day would be when the house sparkled, the toys were picked up, and all that came out of your mouth was dulcet and calming. As you laid your head down, you wondered if other moms dreamt the same dreams as you.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
You let your children fly on their own in this big wide world. You held your tongue when it looked like the choices being made would lead straight to heartache and misery. You knew this lesson learned could build character and strength. And you begged God at every step that all of what you may have left undone in the raising of your children would be covered by the grace of the Cross.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
Now you’re finding yourself under all the layers of motherhood — rediscovering dreams pushed back into corners, hidden under the bed, and drowned in the mop bucket. You left them behind in hopes of giving your children the very best start in life. Now you lay out the pieces of scattered what-ifs and begin a new season, a new start.
As you fit your dreams together in this new phase, it is to the echoes of motherhood in all that you do. You still pull together the favorite meal, pay the cellphone bill, or cover the first month’s rent. With a practiced ease you fill a cart full of groceries and buy houseplants to spruce up college living. You still spit on your finger to clean the corner of eyes and make sure they have an extra twenty bucks to get them through the week.
Although it’s been years since you carried these babes under your heart or in your arms or over your heart, there is a simple truth you know with every stretchmark and every fortified sagging part. Through every trial and every triumph this truth remains: You will always and forever carry them in your heart.
Even when . . . the nest is empty.
This is for you, Mama, you know who you are.
Tonya Salomons
Tonya is the wife of 21 years to one good man and the mother to Mikayla (19) and Dylan (16). She is learning that even though her and husband are entering their “empty nest” years the beautiful task of mothering is never ending. She is grateful that the grace of the Cross covers all of the things that she may have left undone as she prepares her children for the big wide world. Tonya writes over at Stone to Heart in hopes of having others recognize the beauty of their own story despite life’s circumstances.
