One is not just born a mother... An ode to mothers everywhere—past, present, and future

[This post is dedicated to my (brave) friends who are celebrating their first Mother's Day from the other 'hood: motherhood]

Motherhood is a difficult topic to reflect upon at this moment, lately it's been a rather sensitive subject and something which has been crossing my mind more frequently than ever before. For most of my life, up until the last few years, I had been able to admire mothers all around me, my own mother, my friends' mothers, teachers, professors, church leaders, etc, relishing their loving guidance and sacrifice which just seemed to flow naturally. It never occurred to me that at one point, these women had been young single ladies just like me, trying to figure out their careers, scoping out potential boyfriend candidates, going out with friends, and just learning to survive on their own. 

Recently, however, I've become more aware of the fact that these women—my mother included— were not always mothers (I know, crazy right?), even though I had always known them in that role. This realization has been brought about by a combination of factors, hormones probably being one such factor but not a principal contributor. In the last year or two, various childhood, high school, and college friends have become, or are in the process of becoming, mothers. These are friends with whom I used to wonder and speculate about who we would marry, what our future children would be like, and other such "grown-up" plans but always as events which were far off, intangible, almost as fantastic as hoping to get into Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (I apologize if I have just crushed the hopes and dreams of some young reader still waiting for his/her acceptance letter...).

Now, those daydreams are becoming reality, I no longer have to imagine what my best friend from high school's baby will look like because he's already here, as of about a month ago. It's not at all that I'm scared for my friends as they take on their new roles as mothers; I think I'm scared that soon I'm going to be in a similar situation, maybe not within the next few years but, even so, motherhood is much closer than it was in high school or even college. What will the transition be like? Will my future husband and I know when we're ready to be parents?

I think the scariest thing of all is the responsibility which comes with motherhood: the task of not just taking care of a baby, then a toddler, then a child, and so forth, but the realization that, as a mother, you have the responsibility of raising a human being, teaching your child how to live, guiding him until he is ready to live independently and begin his own career and family, leaving his own footprint on this world, for good or for bad, and while a mother can neither predict nor control who her child will become, she has an essential role in the entire process.

Add to all those concerns society's message that children are not blessings but actually burdens, weights which anchor us down, holding us back from achieving our career and life goals, from living life to the fullest, enjoying everything this world has to offer. Sometimes I even start to believe that lie as I walk around Buenos Aires and see the tired faces of countless mothers pushing one child in a  stroller while yelling after her other child who is running ahead along the sidewalk, but when I least expect it, God reveals a glimpse of true beauty...

A toddler running, or, rather, teetering, towards her mother with her arms reached high over her head, a smile too big for her little face which brightens up the mood of everyone within a fifteen meter radius, as her mother sweeps her up into a loving embrace.

A fourteen-year-old girl cries as her middle-aged mother hugs her, caressing her hair, reassuring her that she is beautiful and loved, and will always be loved, no matter what life may throw in her direction.

A twenty-three-year-old young lady far from home, confused about which career path to take, worried about how to grow up, shares all her concerns, her hopes, her dreams with her mother via a video call, only to hear her mother tell her she loves her more than she could ever imagine and will always be there to support her and listen.

Okay, maybe the last example was a bit close to home, but that's when I realize the relationship between a parent and child is something so unique, so special, so complex that trying to wrap your head around it is just as futile as trying to grasp the depth, width, and height of God's love for us. There is certainly a reason God chose to use the image of a Father and child to illustrate His relationship with us through Christ. 

I have been blessed with a mother who has exemplified true love, guidance, and sacrifice for her children in every possible way. She and my father have made not only a wonderful parenting team but also have been a reflection of a Godly, loving, and committed marriage relationship, and I could not be more thankful for them. I pray that as my friends and I head into this next stage of life (if it's something we are called to do), we too would be able to reflect Christ's love in our marriages and in our relationships with our children.

To all the mothers and soon-to-be mothers reading this, I want to encourage you and wish you a happy Mother's Day. Thanks for all the sacrifices you make and for showing us what it means to love without expecting anything in return, to love completely selflessly, to be a bit of Heaven on earth.

A peace only found on Sundays

Sundays are the best days in Buenos Aires (a declaration I may have already made in a previous post, but I'd like to reaffirm the idea), especially Sundays during a long weekend. Near silence replaces the typical honking horns, car alarms, police and ambulance sirens, truck and bus engines, and the general bustle of the city during the week as the city's residents, the porteños, self-loved but almost unanimously hated throughout the rest of the country, hide away in their apartments and houses and spend the day just being lazy and enjoying time with family while the most wealthy flee to their weekend homes.

Even along the commercialized major avenues, silence reigns. Almost everything is closed, the only stores which open regularly on Sundays, except in the shopping malls, are the supermarkets, the "chinos," (I know it sounds racist, but that's what they're called here) grocery stores owned by East Asians, and the "kioskos," which are essentially tiny convenience stores found on nearly every block throughout the entire city. The same sidewalks which during the week are so packed that it is nearly impossible to walk without bumping into somebody, especially if one is in a hurry, on Sundays are almost completely deserted and one can ramble along at one's own pace without worrying about upsetting a horde of pedestrians trying to get where they need to go.

Obviously, even on Sundays, in a major city like Buenos Aires, there are plenty of opportunities to be around crowds—soccer matches, along the river (on sunny days), and in other touristy areas—, but if one wants to enjoy the rare calm of one of South America's largest cities, Sunday is the best day to do so.

Few joys in life compare to waking up without an alarm clock on a Sunday morning to the absence of sound, silence, a rarity and a delicacy for city dwellers. The sound of an engine as a car or motorcycle passes along the street below or the low murmur of a family talking on it's way to morning mass will occasionally interrupt the otherwise complete silence, but the overall feeling of peace and quiet remains unbroken.

The peace found on Sundays is a small escape and distraction from the city, the country, and the world's problems. It's the day one can forget about issues at work, about terrible traffic and inconsistent public transport, about drug wars and rumors of wars in the East, about over-crowding and inadequate infrastructure, about corruption and inflation, and just enjoy the simple pleasures of a home-cooked pasta lunch or a barbecue, asado, with family and friends, of snuggling up on the couch alongside your family with a good book and a cup of coffee, of sitting on the living room floor with the kids and playing with building blocks or puzzles. Aren't these simple pleasures a glimpse at the essence of life? Why else go through the stresses of school, work, and taxes except to be able to enjoy time with those you love while having a place to live and food to eat? I love Sundays because they give us the peace required to rest and reflect on such things.

I'll conclude my ramblings with a quote from one of my favorite thinkers and authors, C.S. Lewis, who elaborated, much more elegantly than I, on this idea of life's simple pleasures but in the context of the simplicity of the purpose of Christianity:

"This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden— that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way, the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose." (from Mere Christianity)