Happy Mother's Day!

Hail, to every Mother, to every Woman!

What does a mother make? Is it the 40 weeks gestation in a woman with the many ailments that befall her? Things such as nausea and vomiting, sometimes so severe she needs to be hospitalized and get a PICC line inserted or a vascular access catheter to feed her the fluids she so desperately needs? Or the long months of back pain, heartburn, indigestion, urinary incontinence, or emotional upheavals when she cries at the drop of a hat or becomes the untamed shrew? Is it perhaps the long hours of labor when contractions which feel like ten times more severe than any menstrual cramps we can imagine, push a head the size of a small melon through an orifice than normally distends to no more than 2 inches? Meaning that those contractions rip and tear flesh as that head, and later the broader shoulders make their way out.

As awesomely brutal as this sounds, all of this does not make a woman a mother. If it did we would not hear about tiny babies left to die in dumpsters by the same women who bore them.

Motherhood begins, unquestionably, there. But, by its mere definition motherhood is the nurturing of a child, the sacrificing for longer than nine months for someone you love more than self. Sacrifice that takes all the talents, purpose, gifts, time, love, hope, forgiveness, nobility and much, much more a woman possesses to ensure that the child she loves, cares for and tends to, will be well, safe and happy. A woman becomes a mother, when being gentle and timid by nature becomes a ferocious lioness to defend the rights of her cub. A woman is a mother whenever she thinks of another’s happiness and puts all she is and can muster to bring that happiness into its life. A woman is born as a mother becomes the Creator of the Universe, in His wisdom, put in her traits so unique that we are unparalleled beings.

So today, on the eve of Mother’s Day, I salute all women who get what motherhood truly is, and our divinely given right to it. I salute the woman who has her children still at home and therefore knows what it is like to be on twenty four seven. The woman whose children are grown and yet spends whole nights thinking of them and praying for their safety. The mother of the successful businessman, the hard working mechanic, or the long lost crack addict, for they all love and sacrifice something for each of them. I salute the woman who as a teacher spends hours on end preparing a message she knows a child needs to hear. The woman who cares for another, whoever it may be, and any way she can as a doctor, a caregiver, a volunteer, a sister, a niece, a daughter, a wife, a leader, or more, and gives service to make the life of another’s easier. I salute the women who are angels and rescuers and saviors and defenders and liberators and so much more in the lives of those who need them.

I hope today and always we may remember how unique a woman who knows her true value is, for only when we forget who we truly are, we fail as mothers... and women.

This is just my opinion...

As a single woman, a Mormon, and a western/Chinese doctor.