Longing.

I long for motherhood.  I think from even before my first memories I longed to be a mother. 

I have thought a lot recently about longing and hope and disappointment.  Part of this human struggle we call life, is facing the contradictions that seep into out hearts as joys and pains.  We all have these contradictions in some form or another – no one is exempt and we can’t get out of living without them.  I pass hundreds of people daily but somehow I forget that their pains and sorrows are as real as mine.  Why is that?  I don’t have all the answers, but I do believe it goes beyond our own selfishness into something deeper, maybe something that takes time to fully understand and grasp.  I know that I’m not there yet.

While I might not fully grasp the sorrows that are embedded deep into the heart of those that pass me by I do know about one sorrow that has been mine – longing.  Motherhood, to me, is sacred.  I have a profound love for the little ones that call me Aunt or Tia – Samuel, Mason and Ethan.  They are bright lights in a world of darkness and bring hope to the hopeless, as all children do.  But I am not their mother – they have those valiant women they are lucky enough to call mother who I know they will praise forever and for that I am grateful.  I am grateful to witness the love that Marcela and Wendy show for such choice spirits and I only hope that if I am granted the chance to be a mother I would follow in their loving footsteps.

There are many loving individuals that would say that I don’t have to have children to be a mother but I believe that they are wrong.  Words like that are often said to comfort and tell people that while they might not have had the chance to experience giving birth or adopting a child they have indeed impacted the lives of the children that they know.  Those are kind words that are often true and I would gladly accept them in reference to my being a good Aunt, cousin, friend or teacher, but in my humble opinion we only have one Mother.  My mother means more to me than there are words to express and with all the hope that I have, I want one day to be for someone what she has been for me.  In that wish is the hope that one day I will hear a child’s voice call out for mother and know that they are talking to me . . .