Particular Delight

Recently, I rediscovered this picture (which I LOVE) and felt compelled to include it here with some comments. From left to right are my brothers Jared and Aaron, mom, and me, probably taken on a Sunday afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska.

First of all, I wish I could step back in time and with outstretched hand clutching a shiny coin ask mom shyly, "A penny for your thoughts?" I love the whimsy, the mystery, the secret thought, the tranquil and confident expression on her face. What was she thinking? What did her quiet heart hold in that moment, which seemed so captivating as to distract her view from the obvious task at hand? I like to think that her little reverie had everything to do with us and the joy of womanhood and motherhood. She seems so instinctively comfortable in securing Aaron's pacifier and holding Jared close. It is the natural outward expression of her divine, innate nurturing nature. The outward expression has been manifest in a thousand, no, a hundred thousand moments; moments as simple as wiping strawberry jam from pudgy cheeks, and as complex as weeping with and feeling for my personal sorrows.

Perhaps all these things have sunk in deeper because it is spring and a time or rebirth and renewal and the maternal instinct is seen by large and small, flora and fauna. Mothers of all kinds are nesting and prepping and cultivating a bit of sanctuary for their new arrivals. Perhaps it came from feeling this year on Mother's Day a heightened gratitude for my own mother. And, as a corollary to that, my own desires to embark on that high road of purpose and fulfillment.

I was talking to mom recently and she commented, sort of unexpectedly, "Being your mother has been my particular delight." And it is with particular delight that I look ahead with that same countenance filled with whimsy, mystery, and confidence to the fullest expression of femininity--motherhood.