Last weekend, we took the kids to McDonald's for lunch. It was a rainy day, we had all gone a little stir-crazy, and the kids needed to let off some steam.
As we sat there and ate, I quietly admired my daughter and how much she looks like her daddy—the graceful curves of her cheekbones, her creamy pale skin, her smiling green eyes.
And then I looked at my son. He has my thick, coarse hair. His eyes are shaped like mine, the colour identical. He is his mother's son.
As we continued to eat, I glanced across the restaurant and saw a mother and daughter sitting together, eating. The child, about six-years-old, leaned against her mother, one hand armed with a chicken nugget, the other hand draped naturally across her mother's shoulder. Her mother casually read a newspaper and held a light conversation with her child. There was nothing uncommon about this scenario—just a mother and daughter enjoying lunch and each other's company on a Sunday afternoon.
The only difference was that the mother was white and the child, Asian.
What struck me was that their relationship was no different from the relationship I have with my own children. There was the same natural ease that I have with my own two kids. The same comfort. The same trust.
Why would their relationship be any different from mine? Because they look different? Because the child was not conceived and carried in her mother's body?
There she sat, this beautiful child with her straight black hair cut in a perfect bob, leaning against her mother, a fair-skinned blonde.
It was possibly one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.
The truth is there is no difference between this woman and me. We are both mothers. My children were born from my womb. Hers, from her heart.
We have both paced the halls at 1a.m. trying to calm our newborns, we have both nursed our infants back to health from illness, we have both changed diapers and cleaned up vomit, vanquished the monsters in their closets, drawn warm baths with more bubbles than they could imagine, cuddled on the couch with them and watched the same movie for the umpteenth time.
We are mothers. We live the same lives and fear the same fears. We have drawn blood, sweat, and tears for our children, and there is nothing on earth that will ever dim that passion and ferocity.
These are our children. They look to us for love, for support, for guidance. They trust us with their little hearts and nestle into our arms for comfort. We are their everything.
The journey to become mothers may have been different for her and me, but our desire was the same.
While I lost babies through miscarriages, adoptions may have fallen through for her.
The heartache, I imagine, is the same.
While I dropped to my knees and cried tears of joy to find out I was pregnant again, she perhaps did the same to find out she was also going to become a mother.
The elation, I presume, is the same.
While I delivered my baby girl and they placed her in my arms, she, too, was also handed a baby girl that she placed in her arms.
That love, I know, is the same.
Motherhood is, hands down, the toughest job there is. It doesn't matter how we get here. What matters is what we do when we arrive.
Printer-friendly version