Motherhood

Arms flailing & legs churning, waves break overhead dragging me into their vortex, spinning and spitting me out again. Coughing, spluttering, gasping, I peer through water-stung eyes, praying for rescue or reprieve. 

And that's just the back-to-school forms and emails. (It is impossible for me to over-dramatize how much I dislike the admin part of life. Not. My. Gifting.)

It's that time of year again, and I'm digging myself out of the pit of an ignored inbox, mail that was on hold from vacation, uniforms, school supplies... I hear homeschooling moms dream of brick-and-mortar schools in February; in August I dream of homeschooling. Heidi was a homeschooling mom extraordinaire. I wish I could commiserate with her right now, share our respective woes (I don't actually think she had any; for her, schooling was life.)

Taking a lunch break from the tantrums of school correspondence (their demands, my response), I intended to grab my library book and read for half an hour, but I realized I needed to use a different part of my brain for bit instead - this part, the part that writes. 

Within Heidi's last year, she, Mark and I had some interesting discussions on the roles of men and women, particularly within the family. In a sketch she drew up on her own, she included a description of the role of Mother that struck me: The [family's] Center of Gravity. 

There are so many reasons I love that description. It's not cloyingly sweet, weak, or in any common way stereotypically feminine. In fact, it exudes strength. I think that's what fascinates me. It falls on my ears as a shatterer of unhelpful stereotypical paradigms and offers a truer sense of womanhood while in no way pitting woman against man. 

That simple description paints for me a picture of healthy womanhood that is unequivocally attractive. I want to be that strong presence of love, order and care, whose very nature draws the family together. Mother, seen in this light, is an irreplaceable role of vast importance with far-reaching consequences. 

...and that brings me back to Heidi, and her irreplaceable motherhood. You are elsewhere - robed in Life Itself - hidden from the arms of your children. 

In the matter of your irreplaceable motherhood, I have to hope - with that same hope with which we approach the matter of souls who through no fault of their own have missed the opportunity for the standard means of salvation - that in the lives of your children we will see that while we are bound to the sacraments [norms] God has given us, to those sacraments [norms] He is not bound. 

Mercy, Jesus. Mercy for all of us. 

It's not lost on me that today's feast is the Queenship of Mary. Irreplaceable Mother. Center of Gravity. Mother par excellence.

P.S. Having said all that, I can not imagine a father carrying this cross more heroically than Kevin. His love and care for his children - his embrace of the graces given to be more than he was meant to be - is astounding.