— a Mother’s Day reflection —

If I’d had a daughter, I would have named her Lena, after my grandmother. Or maybe Stella or Lyla. I liked those names too.

I imagine we might have done quiet activities together: dressing up dolls and painting fingernails a ridiculous shade of pink. When she was old enough, I would have given her my American Girl doll Samantha. Brown eyes shining, Lena would have looked at Samantha with the same awe and love I felt at her age. It was an inheritance I was eager to pass on.

But Samantha stayed in a box in the attic.

Instead, I sit on the back patio watching four boys run barefoot through the grass. They’ve invented some iteration of freeze tag, and while their wild laughter is contagious, their play always teeters on the edge of danger. I worry more than I thought I would about the boys getting hurt, but on some level, it’s justified. Most days, at least one of them has a bloody nose or a scraped knee. One summer, we went to the emergency room four times in two weeks. So I worry a little.

I thought motherhood would be gentler. But it has been both an undoing and a redemption.

Often I wonder if I’m getting it all wrong. I hear the sharpness in my voice or sense the need to hide in the bathroom with a bag of Reese’s Pieces. My nerves are raw at the end of most days from the sheer volume of four boys in a small space. I feel guilty for how their shouts and laughter make me cringe; my overloaded senses are not their fault. They are not being bad, just loud. (So loud.)

In a million little ways, motherhood has pried me open, and I’ve come to see myself a lot less righteous and a little more clearly. But there have been crushing griefs too. The kind that have kept me in bed for days, wondering how I would piece our life back together.

And yet, they bring me dandelions.

Passing a patch of weeds during their play, the littlest one stops and bends over. He carefully plucks the two largest yellow blooms from the bunch. A smile spreads across his face as he marches over, dirt covering his arms and legs, and hands me his find, “For you, mama.” His eyes sparkle.

I love how kids see beauty where we see nuisance. My arms open wide, and I pull him into a hug. He lingers against my chest for only a moment before he’s bursting from my arms back to his brothers. I clutch the dandelions in my hands. They feel like grace in my fingertips, so I breathe deep and let it sink further in.

Motherhood is not what I expected. But for all the ways it has left me feeling exposed and ill-equipped, it does not leave me there in the shadows. Light is always sneaking in through the cracks. And even on my worst of days, they bring me dandelions.

feature image by Jan Ledermann via unsplash