Mothers and Others

OK, I'm sure I'm not the first person to write about this... but here it is, putting it out there.. a new thought (although I suspect 'others' have already had it...) about Mother's Day.

So, clearly, we've all HAD a mother, but we've not all BEEN a mother. 

I'm one of the second category, happily by choice, but I know so many people out there who have suffered the pain of not having become a mother through whatever reason. And of course, for some, Mother's Day can only reinforce that feeling. 

So here I step very trepidatiously, aware there's a big army of mothers out there to whom I don't belong and of which I have no experience of being. 

Whilst I don't want to negate or under-appreciate all it takes to be a mother; nor steal any of the well-deserved gratefulness that Mother's Day brings; nor would I suggest that the joy of anyone's 'having become' should be suppressed or sacrificed at the awareness of another's 'never been'.  What I'm thinking is that without loosing or watering down the 'original', and without becoming inanely politically correct, that we could include what's already there in the word - the 'others’ in 'Mothers’.

So, to all those people who've been in our lives, who are not our mother, and yet have been like a mother. 

To those who, with mothers long gone, have become our 'replacement' mother.

To those of any gender who've shown us all the attributes synonymous with a mother.

To those who've set out to live their life channelling the best and avoiding the worst of their own mother.

I'm sure there's many more I could add, but you get the gist and in keeping it brief, and in worrying times, here's to a happy M(other)'s Day.