Tell Out My Soul

The month of May is dedicated to Mary the mother of God, and it’s the month during which we celebrate motherhood. Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and so my thoughts turned to the significance of motherhood.

The first thing I’d like to share with you, that sums up what motherhood means to me, is that having a child is like watching your heart walking around outside your body. I don’t remember how I came across this saying but it rang so true for me that I’ve never forgotten it. I can also say that it’s like having my brain walking around outside my body too… I don’t know how many times I ask my son to remember something for me. 

Now my mum and I were totally different people, so her experience of motherhood was not the same as mine. I’m an only child, because mum couldn’t have any more children after me. But I don’t know if she would have had another one even if she could, she used to say that one child was not enough and two was one too many. 

I ended up having three children. Mum loved me with a very strong love and one day she asked me  what it was like to have three. She wondered whether I loved them all the same amount; she always thought that because she had such an intense love for me, her one and only child, that she didn’t know if she could muster up that amount of love for three of them. I told her that a mother’s love is unlimited. Of course a mum loves each of her children exactly the same and with the same intensity.

This kind of love is like the faith that Jesus spoke about in the parable of the mustard seed. Even the smallest amout of faith can move a mountain. He was saying that it’s not about having a lot or a little, it’s not about the amount or quantity of faith, it’s the quality of faith. And a mother’s love, I think, has that same quality. This is why there is no end to the supply of love that a mother has, it doesn’t matter how many children she has, or how old they are, or what they do. Some mothers may not necessarily even like how their children behave or what they do, but that doesn’t change the nature or the essential quality of that love. And these feelings can’t be measured.

Another thing that stands out to me is how motherhood is part of a continuum. My grandmother lived with us, and she was so important to my upbringing, especially early on, in my infancy and early childhood. My parents came here from Italy and they were starting from scratch in a new country, so mum had to go out to work and my nonna took care of me. Mum, dad, me and nonna were a very closely knit little group. And what I realise, especially when I look back at my childhood, is that being a mum, or a dad, is part of a long thread, and it’s the power of love that connects and ties the generations together. 

Through my life I’ve managed to experience and to have been blessed with a great many things, but I only became a mother relatively late in life. So at this stage I haven’t as yet been blessed with grandmotherhood,  and I suppose that’s in God’s hands. But what I am sure of is that becoming a mum to three beautiful people is probably the most important thing I’ve ever been called to do.