Longer hugs

Happy Mother's Day.  I know there are many people that do not love this day, whether it's because there is pressure to be the perfect mom, or disappointment that the day was not as perfect as you hoped it would be, or perhaps someone isn't a mom and wants to be, or maybe you beat yourself up because you are a mom and you sometimes don't love it...that's OK.  

I am learning to enjoy Mother's Day a lot more than I used to.  In past years, I sometimes cried because I wanted to be a mom, but I wasn't yet.  I've cried because I wanted to be the "perfect mom" and I'm not.  I've cried because the day was so "normal" and the kids fought and I didn't get breakfast in bed or lots of pampering.  I have cried because I have been far away from my own mother, and I missed her on Mother's Day.  And I've cried because I didn't have my Gideon to hold. 

Holidays, especially family-centered holidays, remind me how much I do miss my little one.  I wanted to hug him today, to chase his toddler-aged self through church, to watch him eat food and get sticky and messy, to yell at him not to jump in the big puddles.   I am trying to use this feeling of missing Gideon (who is not with me) as fuel to love the ones who ARE with me better.  

I still fall short.  I yell more than I should.  I don't read to them EVERY day.  I plan to play games with them, and then get busy and it doesn't happen.  I don't always check over their homework.   I'm a human being, and I'm not going to dwell on all the things I am not doing, because that list would be disappointing and depressing.

I DO try to take moments each day to make sure that they get a good long hug, the kind of hug where they feel like they know I don't want to let them go, like the last one I gave my Gideon.  I held him for over an hour after he died.  It was the first and only time I got to change his diaper, to washcloth bath him, to touch him all over, because his body had been too fragile and hooked up to too many tubes before.  I did not want to let go of him, even after his body began to become cold and stiff.  It was so very hard to have so little time.

Letting go of my baby and walking away from the hospital for the last time was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It still hurts, even just to remember those moments.  He had so little time to influence my life, and yet he has changed me for good forever.  I WANT his life to have mattered, to have made a difference.  If by losing my Gideon, I'm able to love more deeply and live more fully, then his life was absolutely precious and special.  And so each day, I try to hold my kids, even for just a minute, and remember how I felt when I knew I was holding Gideon for the last time, how precious that hug was to me.  I want my kids to know that they are loved, that their hugs are precious, that their lives are precious, that the time they spend with me is precious, and that they matter and can make a difference.  

We didn't really do gifts this Mother's Day (I'm not really a "stuff" person) and the thing I'm the most grateful for was the extra thought they put into singing to me, to helping in the kitchen, and the extra long hugs I got today.  I missed my youngest boy today, but I hugged my other children and husband a little tighter and a little longer today because I know firsthand how precious those hugs really are.  And despite the ache in my heart, those longer hugs made today a good day.