Reflections // on this, my 23rd mother's day

I was eleven.

It wasn't hard to leave, I had no connections there. 

But it was hard to join. I didn't know how to interact off of the softball field. (but put me in a dugout, and I would lead all of the chants.)

New walls, new teachers, new school. New house. New everything. Fresh chances. 

New fear. 

I had spent most of my 3rd and 4th grade years spending recess playing football and soccer with the boys. Tetherball and jump rope were solid stand ins on days the boys decided I couldn't play. By 5th grade the boys never passed the ball to me, and the girls had all been told by their mothers to stay away from the Mormon girl. I spent my recesses on the straight bars, teaching myself how to be a gymnast, my best buddy the playground guard.

6th grade we moved houses. I left Shumway for Weinberg and never ever looked back.

But I had a hard time looking forward too.

I spent the first few weeks on the bars, just as I had done in 5th grade. Until Ms. Marilyn Crandall, my new librarian, approached me.

Library aid. A badge with my picture on it. Special duties. Books. Dewey Decimal System. I ran home to sing the praises of my librarian. My new best friend.

Every day for recess I was allowed to show the playground guard my librarian aid badge and walk, unaccompanied, to the library where I would scan, clean, sort, and shelf books. It was my new safe haven. There were five others selected. We became a team.

Ms. Crandall gave me friends, trust, responsibility, purpose. And greatest of all: confidence.

Ms. Crandall never had children of her own. She never married. We WERE her children. She a maternal figure in my life. 

She came to my wedding. Fittingly, she gifted us Where's Waldo and Where the Sidewalk Ends.

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I could go on and on about the women that our society fails to recognize on this day called mother's day. There are the women who never married, for whatever reason. There are the women who crave for a child, but their body won't cooperate. There are the women who serve other's children as if they were their own.

Each of these women is powerful. Each of them is influential. Each of them has heartache and joy and deserve a day to be loved.

Have you ever thought about how dismal this day could be for these women? This is why I don't believe in a "first" mother's day. If you are a girl and you have learned to love and serve and create joy among those around you, every mother's day is for you-no matter your age.

So what do I want for my 23rd mother's day? You to go find your own Marilyn Crandall and wish her a happy mother's day. Because it's her day too.

And if you have ever felt like indulging my whims, let's spread this around: #mothersdayforall

Because pushing a person out of you doesn't make a mother.

Love makes a mother.

So, to all of you reading who haven't had a chance to hear what you deserve to hear: Happy Mother's Day! I hope it's splendid. And thank you for loving me, my family, and all of those around you.

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