Mother’s Day of this year was pretty low key. Everyone was either sick or had been getting over being sick. We didn’t have time to plan anything, and even if we did, we weren’t really up to it. So TJ and the kids made me breakfast that morning, and we went to Mass and that was about it. We hung around the house and just chilled out.
And then all of a sudden about halfway through the day, I noticed a change in Magoo. She started acting peculiar. We had some birthday decorations still hanging up from Goosie’s birthday, and Magoo told me to pretend that they all said “Happy Mother’s Day” instead of “Happy Birthday.” She told me the streamers were no longer birthday streamers but they turned into Mother’s Day streamers. At dinner when TJ was about to pass out the plates, she screamed, “Stop!” and then said that I had to pick out my favorite plate because it was Mother’s Day and it was important that I got what I wanted.
Among these and some other little events, I started to realize that she didn’t think my Mother’s Day was special enough. She saw all I did for their birthdays and she thought Mother’s Day needed the same fan fare.
And there it was. THE perfect gift. She could have bought me the moon and it wouldn’t have meant more to me than the very fact that in her little girl heart she was able to experience empathy and was able to think about how I must feel, and these made her want to do whatever she could in whatever limited power she had to make my day special.
I get sad with each year as my girls grow up. Magoo is six. That is 1/3 of the way to eighteen and that is just way too much for my feeble heart to understand. But the thing is that with each passing season comes a new one. And the new one right now is pretty remarkable.
I remember the moment she was born. The moment the nurse held her up and showed her to me before suctioning her lungs. I remember them placing her on my chest. And I remember her taking my breath away by her very being. She didn’t need to do anything or be anything or accomplish anything. By just being her, she was all she would ever need to be in my eyes.
But now that she’s six she is being someone and she is doing things and she is accomplishing things, and sometimes I just look at her, and she takes my breath away just like that very first time. There’s a lot I could say about Magoo. She is beautiful. She is extraordinarily intelligent. She’s funny. She’s creative. But more than anything else, she is pure.
A few months ago, we saw someone on the street holding up a sign saying he needed a job and food. She told me that we should go out and collect money for daddies who don’t have jobs so they could get one. A few months later, she told me she wanted to go buy some seeds so that she could go around our whole town and plant fruit trees in everybody’s yards so that all the hungry children could have some food. She shares toys with her sister. She looks after her baby sister. She looks after me. If she has even the slightest thought that I might be upset, I’ll feel her crawl under my arm and cuddle with me and tell me that I’m the “best mama ever.”
So Magoo, as you turn six. As you begin the second third of your journey to adulthood, here is what I have to say to you.
Be strong. Remember who you are. Remember what you want. Chase your dreams. “You have a brain in your head and feet in your shoes,” and if anyone can change the world, it’s you my dear.
Keep your dreams big. There is injustice in the world. God has blessed you with a heart that can see that injustice. Keep your eyes open to it, and keep seeking opportunities to make a difference. Somewhere through life, most of us lose that belief that we can make a difference. We stop trying. Don’t stop. Because you can and you will change this world.
Stay pure. The world is full of so much evil and darkness. And it’s filled with a lot of grey too. While all out destruction can be limited, cynicism and bitterness are much more common. Keep them away. Don’t let them infect your heart. You see the good in people. Keep looking for that. There will be dark. There will be fallibility. That’s fine. Acknowledge it and then focus on the good.
And finally, thank you. I wanted to be a mama for so many years before you finally came into our lives. The funny thing is that at the time, I had no idea just how much motherhood would be. How much it would take my heart, open it up, and put it back together again, more full and more vulnerable and more alive than it had ever been to begin with. I guess you could say it’s the luck of the draw that you became our first, but the lessons you have taught me have made me into a more real and more alive person than I had ever been before.
Thank you for being my side kick. And for trusting me completely. And for wanting me around even when no one else does. Thank you for calling me beautiful. And smart. And “the best mommy in the world.” Thank you for caring. Thank you for inspiring me to care for others. Thank you for allowing your vulnerability to live on. For not becoming jaded. Or too old for your age.
Thank you for being you, the person I fell in love with in that hospital room six years ago today. The person I absolutely could not wait to meet and the person who instantly felt like I had known all my life.
Your daddy and I used to live in a high rise apartment about two years before you were born. We lived on the sixteenth floor. One day we got bad news — we got news that the journey we had already been on for years to get pregnant might not ever end happily ever after. There was a hole in my heart. My breath was going through me because the inside of me was utterly empty.
I didn’t know what to do. So I went outside and I sat on our balcony and I started speaking to the stars. I started speaking to my baby. I told you that I loved you. I told you that I desperately wanted to get to you. I told you that I knew you were out there and that one day, somehow you would end up in my arms. I don’t know how long I sat there talking to you. Maybe it was minutes or maybe hours. But it gave me strength. Because I knew I wasn’t just talking to an empty sky. You were there and you were listening, and in that moment, I gleaned strength that would carry me through another two years of tears.
And with every ounce of my being, I know that I would take that journey again. I would endure the bad test results and the monthly reminders and all of the endless doctor’s appointments. I would do it all again because you were the pot of gold at the end of the journey.
Happy birthday Magoo. Here’s to another year of firsts. May God bless you always and keep you in the palm of his hand.
