With Mother’s Day just nine days away I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how I view this holiday in light of our recent familial changes. I’ve decided that it’s all a little too fresh for me to process and is going to take many more meditation showers - aka any shower where I’m not being watched by a toddler who is begging me to make smiley faces on the glass. 

What I was able to conclude is that Motherhood has been a gift in all the ways that it is supposed to be. A gift with a bit more soul-sucking helplessness and heart-shattering pain than I would have liked, but a gift all the same. Through it all though, regardless of any of my children’s individual circumstances, motherhood has consistently gifted me one of the things I’ve needed most to survive: community. 

This was a somewhat surprising revelation to come to considering some of my loneliest times have been as a stay-at-home mother when I’ve felt cut off from the adult world. Though, being a full-time working mom juggling an impossible work-life balance that left zero time for a social life wasn’t much better. Community and friendships can take such a long time to foster and grow that it is often difficult to see them manifesting in an individual moment. It is only with time and a change of perspective that you can see their evolution.

Friends come into our lives through choices we make: work colleagues that we grow close to as a result of accepting a specific job, friends from college, neighbors. Parenthood brings friends into our lives because of someone else’s decisions or conditions - this other human that we love and care for but that will ultimately have their own life separate from ours but that, for now, dictates so much of our lives. 

I don’t know what I would have done without my Chicago mom friends, many of whom were the parents of Jackson’s friends. In fact, I am still on a group text chain with many of them and for a long time after we moved back to New Jersey I knew more about what was going on in the Chicago Public Schools than in our local district because those moms were still my lifeline. 

Then, of course, there are the friends I met through Adelaide because of her epilepsy and various medical complexities. Both in person and online, I owe this community my sanity. While I certainly wish we hadn’t connected under these circumstances I am eternally grateful to know each and every one. Similarly, my friends who came into my life because they had also lost a child. These friendships may be bittersweet but they have kept me afloat and would never have existed without Adelaide. 

“I was wondering if you wanted to get together with Ella and Vivian and their moms tomorrow morning?” The text was from a mom at Strawbaby’s school that I had met a few weeks prior. 

Is this the beginning of another new community born from motherhood? Maybe, or perhaps these kind and welcoming women are people who I will enjoy for this moment. That said, whether it is these women or others, I can nearly guarantee that Strawbaby will introduce me to another new community. A new group of mother’s who are in a similar place in their life.

They probably won’t have ever sat with two browser windows open: one with a research white paper about some specific new finding that may or may not relate to my child’s condition and the other open to a medical dictionary so that I can look up every third word. They probably won’t have funny stories about being roused from a hospital futon, braless with yesterdays mascara smudged on one cheek by a young medical resident. They almost certainly won’t have had to make arrangements for their child’s end of life - and that’s ok. Not every friend needs to be able to relate to every aspect of our complex lives. Also, if I need to live in that head space for awhile I have a community of people I know I can turn to.

Today, my day-to-day life looks so vastly different from what it did three years ago, or six years ago or ten years ago. As it should! Strawbaby will bring new community into my life and also helping me connect with friends I’ve had for years in new ways. Friends who can relate to the stresses of tantrums, the never-ending battles for control and the utter pleading for a day with a regular nap. 

So, while I’m still processing how I feel about Mother’s Day on a personal emotional level, I will take time to celebrate the incredible gifts of friendship and community that each of my children have given me and will continue to give me for years to come.

“Yes! That sounds lovely!” I texted back to Strawbaby’s friend’s mom. 

And you know what? It was lovely.