Mommy, I Want You To Be Happy

"Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark...

to have been loved so deeply...

will give us some protection forever."

J.K. Rowling

As a little girl, Mother's Day for me meant another excuse to wear the pretty new dress that had been previously showcased on Easter Sunday, but this time accessorized with a pink carnation neatly pinned on the left side, just over my heart. Going to the florist to pick up two pink flowers for me and my mom, and a white one for my grandmother was a highlight of the weekend. That, and hearing my mom say how much she loved whatever macaroni and fresh glue-glob craft I presented her with after Sunday School. It made me smile. It was a happy day.

Then I grew up.

That's not to say that Mother's Day is not still a happy day, because it is. Let's just say it's an emotionally complex day:

• The loss of my maternal grandmother gave me my first taste of the bitter-sweetness of the day. Suddenly it occurred to me what she must have felt all the years that she wore what I thought of as a pretty white flower, never really stopping to think about what it signified in her life.

• I've had a ring-side seat over the years as both my own parents and my husband's parents lost their mothers, observing grief and the myriad of ways they have individually sought a new normal without the women who brought them into the world.

• When I became a mother through adoption, I quickly learned that it is possible to feel elation and devastation simultaneously. The gift of a beautiful baby boy for me meant profound loss for his birth mom. I carry this amazing young woman in my heart every day along with the juxtaposition of emotion that will never go away.

• A little more than a week ago, the woman who has been my best friend more of my life than not gave her mother permission to step into eternity and be fully healed. Her loss is my loss because we are connected that way, and because when you grow up in a small town as we did, everyone else's parents are yours too.

• Then there is the amazing beach week I just spent with my mother. Watching her picking up shells and wading knee deep into frigid water whose pounding waves made it look like she'd been in waist deep, all for the little boy who calls her Mimi. Wishing I possessed a fraction of her patience for Play-Doh and stickers. Memorizing her face, her voice, her hands, her laugh.

The fact is, if we live long enough, Mother's Day, and every other holiday, birthday or special occasion, eventually becomes melancholy. The sin and brokenness of this world touches us via the outstretched fingers of death and relational wounds, marring days that should be filled with life and laughter. 

So, experience and wisdom have brought me to this junction, a crossroads where idealism and humanity collide. It is my purpose from here forward, on Mother's Day and every other day, to embrace both the heights of joy and the depths of grief - not just my own, but that of those around me. To feel it all. To enter into it willingly. Because One before me did the same. Not because He had no choice, but so that He could fully identify in every way with those He loved. 

"In your relationships with one another, 

have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 

Who...made himself nothing 

by taking the very nature of a servant...

And...humbled himself by becoming obedient to death --

even death on a cross!"

Philippians 2:5-8

A few weeks ago the phone rang, a Face Time call from Peru. But instead of a typical conversation with my South American family, this chat delivered a blow - one of my "fur babies" at El Jardin had passed away. Being the dog lover that I am, my heart was broken and I cried. In the moment it did not occur to me that Toby had never seen me cry like that before or that his two-year-old brain was scrambling to make sense of what was happening. I regained most of my composure and we went about our normal bedtime routine.

After several sloppy goodnight kisses he headed off to his room so his daddy could tuck him in. Seconds later, when he should have been in bed, I heard the sound of Little Man's feet on the floor. He rounded the corner in a dead run, headed straight for me, huge crocodile tears flying from his eyes. Bounding up into my lap, he threw his arms around my neck and said, "I not want you to be sad, Mommy; I want you to be happy!"

Isn't that really all any of us wants for our mommies?

(In Loving Memory of Glendel Marie Ashley.  See you soon, Tootsie! We will pick up where we left off when I get there...)

Bags for Birth Mothers

Today's post is a bit different from my regular posts in that it offers you a chance to come alongside me in a ministry that God laid on my heart almost three years ago; today the dream becomes a reality.  

Perhaps the best way to give you a glimpse into my heart is to share a piece entitled Birth Mother that I wrote and posted on my previous blog, on Little Man's adoption day in 2013.  Reading that post will help you to understand why this new ministry, "Bags for Birth Mothers," is such an important cause.

Below is your opportunity to join me.  I hope you will...

Bags for Birth Mothers

Dear Friends,

My husband and I are adoptive parents.  Our beautiful baby boy, born June 15, 2013, is now a rambunctious, curious and ridiculously handsome two year old toddler.  We know the pain of infertility and the emotional roller coaster that is the adoption process.  But through it all, God moved me beyond myself and has given me a deep empathy for and sensitivity to birth mothers. Our birth mother is a special young woman who made a brave decision; she chose life and an adoption plan for her unborn baby. Her choice directly affected our lives, giving us an incredible gift for which I am eternally grateful.

For women whose paths to motherhood are similar to mine, the moment we become adoptive mothers is one of the happiest moments of our lives, yet also profoundly sad.  We leave the hospital carrying a newborn who is the answer to countless prayers.  Birth mothers depart empty-handed, facing days of doubting and wrestling with their decision, and perhaps being judged and criticized for allowing other families to parent their children.  God has laid it on my heart to minister to birth mothers, putting something in their hands that lets them know they are not forgotten, and that both their courage as well as their pain and grief do not go unnoticed.

I would like to offer you an opportunity to join me in this ministry.  Click this link, Bags for Birth Mothers, to shop my "Bags for Birth Mothers Thirty-One Party."  Place an order for one or more Zipper Pouches (cost is only $18 including shipping, tax, and Thirty-One Gives Round-Up for Item #3045 - any pattern) and I will donate my commission as a Thirty-One Independent Consultant to fill the bags with items that will minister to the physical and emotional needs of a birth mother.  (You may contact me directly to place your order, or if you wish to order additional items). My goal is 50 Zipper Pouches.  I am currently working with the adoption counselors to determine how to appropriately fill the bags.  When the bags arrive and have been filled, I will follow up with those who have participated, providing you with photos of the bags and their contents.  I will be donating the bags to the Law Office of James F. Thompson, Adoption Attorney, whose adoption counselors will present them to the birth mothers they have counseled and befriended as they are discharged from the hospital and the adoption placement is complete.

Birth mothers deserve to know that they are loved as unconditionally as they love their babies and as Christ loves them.  Help me demonstrate this love.

A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege is not lost on me.
Jody Landers