Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you all found beauty in the day, wherever you are.
I feel so grateful to get to mother my boys. But I know how much luck plays a role in so much of life. For those of you who feel pain today, I am thinking of you.
”Blessed” is sometimes used to describe this overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude. But it misses the mark. Most people mean well when they say it. I have meant well when I have said it in the past. If I say it again, I say it meaning I feel overcome by love, gratitude, joy, awe.
But in a way saying “blessed” can feel so cold and naive to the other person in the conversation. By no means does it correlate with deserving. Many with the purest of hearts lose their lives and their loves. It’s hard to make sense of why some suffer so much. Perhaps it’s beyond comprehension. I want to replace feeling blessed with feeling grace.
I feel a magnificent grace.
Today the boys showed me their love in the ways they best could. My oldest got fully dressed with shoes and coat and a hat to walk our pup.
My third boy played his violin, and only at the very end turned it into a guitar. My second boy worked hard on his practice.
And the baby restocked the cases. Or maybe unstocked. I’m not sure. Guess I'll find out.
We had a good day.
They all are so different and are at such different stages of life. And they just keep moving through these stages. They keep changing.
A few years ago Scott told me he felt like he was nagging our oldest, but he felt he had to get in all the lessons he could while our boy still thought his parents had something worthwhile to say.
The fact is, the change comes so quickly. One day you lean over for a goodnight kiss and you realize the recipient is no longer as eager. One day you realize he would rather be elsewhere than with you. And there is nothing you can do but love him through it.
Soon he will be off with friends (I think this will return), jumping into cars, getting on airplanes, moving away. And there is nothing you can do but love him through it. It’s so hard to believe.
So we get in our lessons and more importantly we get in our hugs.
Hopefully the love only grows, strengthened by the changes time brings and the resilience of devotion.
This morning, my oldest gave me that knotted heart in the first picture. Sometimes the words get harder to say, but strangely easier to hear. I love you too, my boys.
And you too, Radar.
May is Skin Cancer Awareness month, which you may already know. For tonight, take a look at your skin. Do you have a spot that maybe you thought was a pimple but it has stuck around now for months? Does it bleed when you wash your face? If so, let’s get it checked out. Check out AAD.org for a skin doctor near you.
Thinking of you all tonight.
xo,
Dr Swae