Today is Mother’s Day.
Along with my thoughts to celebrate the moms in my life I also think about some things that are a little more solemn…
On this annual day of recognition, I often think about friends who have lost their mother. Is this day especially tough for them? I think about the many friends who have lost a baby through a miscarriage or a death? How do they feel? I also think about the women and couples who haven’t been able to conceive but so badly want to. I also think about the brave women and couples who place their baby up for adoption. And about those people who have excitedly adopted those precious children.
I’m not a mother in the traditional sense, as in I’ve never given birth to a child. But I still consider myself a mother.
(The picture to the left is my sister Rochelle and I. She and her husband just returned to the states yesterday after being stationed in Japan for the past three years.)
Reason #1: As the oldest of four kids, I often had the “mothering” role with my siblings. I would do practically anything for my siblings. One Halloween, I was in high school and my two sisters were wanting to dress up to go trick-or-treating. I got an idea.
They could be Hershey Kisses. Don’t ask me where this came from, but we were all excited. I got brown garbage sacks and cut a hole for their head and arms. They each put it on like a dress and we tied the bottom…then we started stuffing. We packed their new brown plastic dress with newspaper so it would be full like a Hershey Kiss.
I molded tinfoil to their head so it mimicked the shape of a wrapped Hershey Kiss. They each had a sash over one shoulder, like a Miss America sash, that said “Hershey Kiss” in blue lettering.
They were excited, I was pleased at the creativity and off we went for a night of candy. They got ahead of me and when they were about 20 feet in front of me the reality sunk in. My heart sank. They looked like little pieces of poop (brown garbage bag) with a silver helmet walking down the street. Were they communicating with aliens?
We laugh hysterically about it now, but then I thought I had done a bad thing.
The good news is that when people saw their Hershey Kiss sash, they laughed at the clever idea and smiled at the excited red heads under their silver helmets.
Reason #2: I started babysitting kids in the neighborhood when I was nine years old. Yes, NINE! One family I tended for had FIVE kids, their oldest was five, the youngest were 5-month old twins. I got paid a dollar an hour. (I got a raise from $.75 an hour when the family had the twins.) AND their house would usually be clean in addition to the parents coming home to five happy kids.
I look at nine-year-olds today and think “Who in their right mind would give them the responsibility of keeping FIVE children under the age of five SAFE???”
Reason #3: During college I was a nanny for a couple of families. The family I was with the longest became my second family, the mom and dad became my second set of parents. I took the youngest child to his first day of kindergarten and felt so proud as he walked nervously into his class with his oversized backpack into his new adventure.
Reason #4: These memories are only part of why I’m celebrating Mother’s day today. I’m celebrating because I’ve breathed life into new possibilities. I’ve carried dreams within my soul and womb until they are ready to be birthed into the world. I deliver them with great care, nervousness and excitement as I wonder what the ideas will be when “they grow up.”
I’m the mother of three current businesses and one business that I laid to rest when it was time. I’ll birth thousands of other ideas into the world during my life.
Do you feel the same way about your business?
Every day you give smiles, words of encouragement, nurturing hugs and more to your business. You protect it. You would do anything to see it be successful. You love it, even during the temper tantrums that you can’t explain.
Happy Mother’s Day to you. Giving birth is just semantics; you are nurturing something to life. Your business has an energy and a life force all it’s own. You were asked to give birth to it, raise it and love it. Thank you for mothering your business – it serves a purpose in the world and makes a difference. So do you.
With Love and To Your Success,
Angela
