Nurturing On Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day 2015 a day celebrating motherhood, honoring our own mothers and the impact of mothers on our society.My kids both live away as they say in Maine (at least that is what I’ve heard Mainers say in spite of the fact I’ve never stepped foot in the state).  This fact gnaws at me but probably helps save my relationship with my children.  I recently heard a story on the Diane Rehm Show about millennials (children reaching adulthood in the early 2000s) and how we raised them to be self reliant and independent (self entitled being the other common characteristic according to analysts on this show).  Mine attended colleges for multiple degrees in multiple states (none of which included their home state, however) thus ending up living and working away.I think the word I would most associate with motherhood is nurturing.  "Caring for and encouraging the development of..."is a definition.  But nurturing is so much more...warmth, protection, love, advocacy.  The image of a nursing mother strikes me as the ultimate representation of motherhood, supplying life-sustaining nourishment.  I'm reminded this day of the many nurturers I know, some of them Moms some of them not.  I think of…Cynthia who drove mile upon mile to rural Alabama caring for her aging father who died last month, all the while providing emotional support for her pregnant daughter living in Texas.Suzi, a constant and reassuring presence in the lives of her grandson, identical twin granddaughters, and newly divorced son, all living so far away in Idaho.I think of Diana, not a mom in a traditional sense, but someone who nurtures the ideas and visions of others making the world a healthier placeI think of Susan, newly retired after years of grueling 70 hour work weeks, devoting herself to philanthropic causes and ever attentive to her only daughter struggling to make her way in the acting world.I could cite countless other examples of selfless acts of devotion. While the act of loving feeds our spirits, the extent to which we care can leave us depleted at times. On this Mother’s Day 2015, let us resolve to nurture ourselves as well as we do others.Send me your stories of nurturing women and I’ll post them here.