Barren or Not, Young or Old…We Are All Mothers

She kind of scared me. I slid past those two, deafening-clanging doors, locking behind me. I was there visiting a grandparent. Only twenty-seven-years-old, two young children…following like baby chicks.

The odor of dying and medicine, lysol and fermented aging was something I never got used to, every step of the way, into this building, my stomach turned so nauseated I just wanted to run.

Grey-haired women sat in wheelchairs. Pale faces, eyes staring blank-faced at white, empty walls as if time, regret, questions, and fears…all stared back as one.

A few locked-eyes, as if begging me, “please take me” where life and laughter and love can dance again.

Did they hope to regain their youth? Were they wallowing in regret? Or did time and chance make them cry for someone just to see them?

So, I did all I could think of at the time, smiled, greeted, assured them their life still had worth and purpose…although in my heart of hearts, even I, questioned if I believed it?

Every time I visited this rectagular building, I wondered about their stories. At the end of a life-time, what was the messages they thought of? Where were their families, their grand-children?

How had they spent their time before trapped behind bolted doors with blank faces, weak minds and barren eyes?

Had they lived wild and free? Were they shy, working tirelessly in an era where people valued and struggled furiously for their families?

Had they been affluent, stuck with wealth or knowledge deep inside them, now dormant due to dementia?

Or did they live so long, they gave up on humanity, lost their own identity, silenced their dreams, resulting in empty-shelled bodied, tormented by loneliness or fear?

One woman I discovered could sing beautifully. Even at her age, she independently broke out in song at the most random times, as if song-birds took flight within her. Others called me into their rooms to talk…

While others lived stuck to their t.v. living dead and frightfully lifeless in their rooms.

One particular lady, not looking a day under ninety, sat in her wheelchair, peace-filling her face, she talked and patted the back of a small plastic dolly propped up on her shoulder.

I looked around; in love and fear at what I was seeing. The nurses didn’t peer or question the insanity of this longing. They accepted this deep heart longing, and welcomed healing…however it needed to come.

And I wonder if we do the same? Do we box up women and proclaim they are only worthy, welcome, wanted if _________?

Slivers of peace and happiness were welcomed for those ones trapped behind locked doors. They had long-since desired to fit any mold, live to appease, or needed success or wealth.

All that mattered when their lives were said and done, was family.

Weekly, I would witness this lady pretending to be a mom to her baby doll. I would pass her in the day sleeping, night-dress on, while crooked, wrinkled-bared feet, stuck out from the ends of her bed….

A doll laying calmly beside her.

At the time, I had no context for this longing. As a young mother, I was fertile, with a two-year-old and four-year-old watching this gift I tried to give them…my example of loving the elderly.

But, I had to question…What made this old woman still cling to motherhood, though her womb lay empty, her mind unwilling to brace her present day reality?

What was it in her spirit that made her cry out from the depths of her being to nurture, even until her ripe old age?

On mother’s day, it can be easy for us to scroll past the barren, race past the young girls and children, or forget the aging person, left abandoned in a nursing home.

On Mother’s Day, we can subconsciously put children, the disabled, the child-less, or worldly driven into separate catagories…than birth-baring, womb-concieving, mothers.

Compartmentalizing, honoring only those women who’ve brought forth a child through conception…

But friends, in my world, the mothers I see look nothing like only those who can still craddle tiny life in their womb.

To me, a “mother” is the one-year-old who feircy coddles a tiny doll, kissing and singing to her as if it was her very own.

This infant didn’t “choose” motherhood…motherhood has chosen her.

Motherhood is ingrained in each of us, whether one or ninety, in child-baring ages or never actually concieving a child of our own.

Those who rise up to nurture in one form or another, they are mothers.

The teachers at our schools who parent hundreds of kids, but never give birth….they are mothers.

The aunt who adored her neices and nephews, gives care, attention and nurturing, though her career left her with an empty womb…they are mothers.

A mother is in every little girl who plays dress up, feeds her dolls imaginary suppers, sits and has tea-party, sings and loving them.

A mother is the piano teacher who lifts her wings and lets dozens of children fly, coming to greet them; giving up her home and time to leave a legacy of what she has learned through the music of her life.

A mother is every women who prays tirelessly, petitioning heaven for each of us, as if we were her very own.

Yes, in my world, “real” motherhood has nothing to do with dna, genetics, or birth.

A pastors wife, a mother to many.

A coach, spending hours teaching…a mom.

Heads of corporations who carry and reach, stretch and mentor, love so selflessly and willingly those around them…

Yes, they, they are in every sense, mothers.

A mother is the one who offers herself unconditionally, accepts people despite their weaknesses, sees people for what they can be, not just by the way they act.

A true mother has vision and speaks goodness over her children, living in truth and hope, while finding joy in being a positive example to her children…

A genuine mother doesn’t let time, or cultures, or some small world-giving label define her.

A mother is the one who reaches, senses weakness but loves anyway. She sees the good, yet discerns dangers, calls out her children’s purpose and destiny…even when her children don’t have eyes all they are meant to be yet.

A mother presses past the hard, loving the broken-hearted, scoops up the lost and absorbs their children’s burdens….offering herself as a sacrifice of grace.

A Mother carries you when you are weary, empowers you when you are depleted, trusts you when you doubt your ability…in seasons you can’t go on.

A mother showers her children effortlessly, wrapping around them in love and mercy. She foresees and understands inner longings, wishes, and unspoken looks, written upon each child’s heart.

True mother’s perceive, sense, and walk in intuition, has perception like no other person has.

A mother is the Bible teacher, girl’s scouts leader, or the foster parent down the street. The one who opens the doors of her home and her heart, despite her womb lying empty.

True mothers call forth nations, love indescriminately, gives willing…her time, her talent, and her energy…..so children can leave her presence, better than they came…

Every mom will eventually send her children to fly, freeing them through teaching, education, nurturing, affirming, and building the character and strength of her child…

With a glorious stew of compassion, logic, truth and love.

A mother also has a surplus of hugs. When the world comes and wants to give dictation or answers…a mother sees her children hurting, offers no shame, scorn, or formulas…

A mother’s hug can heal, like no one else’s can.

She is the anchor of her children’s ship, the intercessory prayers behind every feat, the call of true blessing, the heroin’s cry that sparks inside us life and a belief that we have never yet dreamed of knowing.

A mother is the laughter in any relationship, joy of gladness, the labor of hands that don’t blast or bash, asking for nothing in return.

Every mother, wherever you are, is the answer to our world’s yearnings. Daughters and sons are looking for women just like you, to take on the mantle of mothering…

Women, who will rise to your natural calling? Walk in your God-given identities? Put yourself last and ask, “How can I nurture, bless, or benefit most this next generation.”

The world needs the selfless, grace-filled, strength, and beauty of women with mothering hearts…just like yours.

I don’t kow if the demented lady in the nursing home I saw when visiting my Grandmother, ever could have children. I don’t know her age, her family size, or her medical history..

All I do know is…

The same spirit that makes a one-year-old carry around a baby doll, pat her head and pretend she is a mama…

Is the same heart of every women….in one form or another.

It’s the heart of that old, wrinkly, forgotten lady in a nursing home who held onto a plastic doll, lay down, fell fast asleep, and never woke again.

Yes, we can mask, hide, disguise this call, or run away with selfish-pursuits…

But motherhood is intertwined in our very hearts. It’s the core and foundation of us all.

And us…whether fertile, barren, or womb empty…carries this call of motherhood. 

So women, let’s rise. Let’s rise and love the child; neighbor kids, girls we coach, love and nurture a world who desperately need mothers.

There is nothing so sacrificial in all the world…nothing as beautiful as the one who gives her life away for the good and benefit of another.

And who does that better than our mothers?