Mother's Day
By Sharon Nicola Cramer
One day while in my early 30s, I sat in a Midwestern church and burst into tears. It was Mother's Day, and ladies of all shapes and sizes, young and old, were being applauded by their families and the whole congregation. Each received a lovely rose and returned to the pews, where I sat empty-handed. Sorry to my soul, I was convinced I had missed my chance at that great adventure, that selective sorority called "motherhood."

All that changed one February when, pushing 40 and pushing with all my might, I brought forth Gabriel Zacharias. It took 24 hours of labor for me to produce that little four-pound, eight-ounce bundle of joy. No wonder those ladies got flowers!

Any mother who has survived one birth amazes herself at her willingness to go for two. Jordan Raphael was born the following March. He was smaller and labor was shorter; but I still felt I deserved flowers.

The sorority I joined requires an extended hazing period: nine months of demanding cravings for unusual foods you can't keep down; weight gain you can't explain; a walk that is part buffalo and part duck; unique bedtime constructions of pillows designed to support this bulge and fill in that gap but avoid all pressure on the bladder; and extensive stretch marks culminating in excruciating labor pain.

With labor, the hazing period ends. But with the child's birth, the initiation period in this great sorority has just begun. The painful tugs on the heart strings far exceed whatever physical pain labor required. There was my older son's first cut that drew blood, his spiked fevers, his long bout with pneumonia; my younger son's terror at a big barking dog, his near-miss with a car, the death of his pet rat.

While the hazing period may seem overlong, this initiation period never ends. I wake up when my sons cough. I hear their teddy bears land with a soft thud on the floor next to their beds. In the supermarket I respond to children calling "Mo-ther!" and the kids, I realize, aren't even my own!

I've advanced past bottle weaning, potty training, the first days of school and the first trip to the dentist. Coming up are first crushes, first heartbreaks, and first times behind the wheel of a car. I hope to someday see them each happily married with children of their own. Then I will gain entry into that even more exclusive sorority of "grandmotherhood."

For now, the password to my heart is "Mom," and I thank my sons for this. Especially on the days of their birth, happily on a special Sunday in May. My young sons do not yet realize how much I value this remarkable membership and won't note it with flowers unless prompted. Yet every time we take a walk, they pluck me a short-stemmed blossom, "just because."

This year I look forward to celebrating Mother's Day - the divine achievement of the physical, the grand acceptance of the commonplace, the exquisite gratitude of watching my sons become uniquely themselves. Because of Gabriel and Jordan, I am a dues-paying, card-carrying member of The Club. Happy Mother's Day to me!