Inevitably, when I need rest, quiet and immobility, I am reminded that my children orbit around me.
Mothers are like the suns of their little domestic universes. Everything revolves around them. Husband, children, even pets, they all find harmony in a synchronous orbit around mother.
Yesterday I needed to put myself to bed and try to sleep this thing off. So when husband came home I finished making dinner and then tried to turn over the household to him and put myself in bed. Within ten minutes the first of my little orbiters came in to tell me absolutely nothing important. A few minutes later another skipped in to simply "see if I was asleep" and was relieved that I was not. Not long after that I was treated to another visit from my youngest. He thought that perhaps I needed to be entertained and snuggled so he moved into "close orbit" and splayed himself across my chest while talking nonstop about origami. Soon after this, my husband came in. He couldn't find something. I told him where it was. Then he came in again wondering how to store the left-overs. Then he decided to do the bills sitting next to me on the bed. At this point I gave up the idea of sleeping - which was good because next came the parade of children giving me origami tulips and cat faces.
I could have gotten mad. I was admittedly a bit frustrated. But I am mom. I am wife. I am, quite literally, the center of their universe. This is something for which I am both eternally grateful and constantly terrified of messing up; but it is as it should be.
One day my children will be grown. It is happening too fast as it is with two of them on the cusp of the teenage years. They will outgrow this small domestic universe of ours. My boys will seek out their own lives. They will find a new "star" to become the center of their orbit. As they should.
My daughter will grow and learn and mature into a woman I hope will understand the important role she will play in a family of her own. A role no one else can fill. The role of wife. The role of mother.
Mother.
This exhausting, beautiful, real, raw, self-emptying calling that makes you alike to the sun, and as full of love as the moon.
And I will one day be able to put myself to bed without interruption, without small feet running to check on me, and I will miss these times. I will miss their need to simply be near me. The security they feel in knowing mother is there. She is awake. She is watching. She is present. And they are in my orbit.
So I turn to Our Blessed Mother.
Mary, Star of the Sea. Mary, Morning Star.
We have a beautiful statue of Mary in our home right now. It is by far my favorite depiction of Mary. The statue belongs to my grandmother but she loans her out to our family members. Whenever she comes to visit I find myself doing the same thing that my children do. I place myself in her orbit. It is enough to be near. To be able to glance at her as I go about my day. To feel her presence and the security that comes with it. I actually contemplated placing her on a table in my kitchen because that is where I spend so much of my day!
More than the presence of a statue though, there is a comfort and a peace that comes from being near Our Lady. She is Mother. The most perfect of Mothers. She offers us all the comfort, the protection, the encouragement, and the help we could possibly need; and she does this because she constantly directs us to THE Son. Her Son. I love the quote from St. Louis de Montfort, "If you put all the love of all the mothers of the world into one heart it still would not equal the love of the heart of Mary for her children."
She understands the unique sacrifices and the gift that is Motherhood. She can distribute to us the Graces we need to accept our role in our families, to be the "sun" in whose orbit our family finds peace. If we place ourselves near her, much as our children do with us, we will find all the help, all the perseverance, all the love we need to be mother.
Mother.
Mary.
Mother for mothers.
