Today is Mother’s Day

What does this mean for you?

“Mother” is a title. Think Mother Teresa. It’s also a noun—proper, improper, possessive. And “mother” is an action verb. When we consider the birthing, bathing, diapering, dressing, spoon-feeding, soothing, rocking, reading, carpooling, cheering, teaching, training, listening, loving. . .

And we are given so many opportunities to provide such mothering to our birth children, our adopted children, our godchildren, our friends, our students, our pets.

What does this day mean to you? For me, this is a day to pause and reflect, to turn toward gratitude and celebration of the many mothers in my life, first, and foremost, for my own mother, who departed nearly seven years ago yet remains so vibrant in our memories.

Marilyn Crawford Watson, a beautiful, elegant woman, brought five children into the world: my glorious older sister, and two sets of twins. I think of my mom when stirring something in a bowl, at that crook in the counter between the kitchen sink and stove, where I used to call her while I baked. Or when I hear music as soothing as her lullabies or as compelling as the operas that moved her. And when I paint my nails, clasp a strand of pearls, write a thank you note, entertain, appreciate art, apply lipstick in the rearview mirror, crave chocolate.

I think of my girlfriends, as well as the many senior women who have guided me, and my godmother, Marianne Shock, an identical twin herself, who has been like a second mother to me my whole life, especially now.

And I cherish my twin sister, Lauren Watson Cesare. Four minutes my senior, she is my higher, kinder, wiser, more patient self, who prefers purple over my pink. She has raised two stunning young women in my nieces, the hope of the present and the future. With the exception of those four minutes, she also has mothered me since we were born, from nights she made room for me in her twin bed, so the nightmares wouldn’t come, to escorting me through the intricacies of mothering my adopted twin daughters.

For me, this is a day to reflect on the morning I brought home someone else’s babies to mother, not as my own, but of my heart. It is a moment to sit in the silence of my living room and ponder the pictures collected in matching frames of babies, dressed in the pink Polly Flinders dresses from Mom, little winsome faces, so sweet, so innocent, so unsure. At two, they stand against the front door, in their matching red shirtwaist dresses and red-and-white argyle cardigans. One has a gleeful smile, her arms tucked behind her back, her left foot cocked on it side as she so often did when she was small. Her sister’s hand rests on her back, as she glances at her with an expression of complete adoration. In another photo, the girls are three years old, in preschool. Dressed in pink floral blouses, they are clutching one another, their arms embracing, their faces pressed, cheek to cheek, and smiling with an honest joy and just a hint of mischief lighting their eyes.

These photographs are stills; a bygone moment portrayed in an echoing silence in the absence of my children. I understand that these heartwarming moments are as true, as real, as honest as any other circumstance that arose during the ensuing years that brought trials and trauma and, ultimately, a “parental pause.” Yet, perhaps, as my wise twin sister has said, this period actually requires some of the most powerful parenting I’ve ever done.

In just six months from now, my elaboration of this story will be available, when “What We Wished For” is released through Acorn Publishing on November 11.

Today, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day, in whatever ways are most meaningful and uplifting for you. I will be in the joyful embrace of my twin sister and her family.