WTF: When Time Flies

The Wine: Morning Mimosa(s)

The Winery: San Francisco Giants Clubhouse, Terminal 3, San Fran Int’l Airport

The W(H)ine: WTF. When. Time. Flies.

I am not a huge Mother’s Day fan.

Not because I hold anything against my mother. How could I? She’s a saint.

But since that nasty two-year-event called Divorce, after which we unequally divvied up the kids, I have spent Mother’s Day either alone, or with people other than my children, oft ruminating how to rectify the ruin resulting from that one, awful, thing.

WTF.

Whose idea was Mother’s Day anyways? Apparently, a lady named Anna Jarvis, circa 1908, honored her mother, Hallmark caught wind, and the rest is history. God bless the American Dream.

Anyways, I became a mother before I was ready. My oldest will vouch, with echoing agreements (read: “Hell, #$*S, yeah!”) from her fabulous four siblings.

What does an eighteen-year-old, circa 1990, really know about raising a child? (Hell, I WAS a child.) And then there were FIVE…In quick succession. Occupying every moment, every ounce of young adult energy, every dollar we could beg, borrow, steal (not really) and, eventually, earn. Better question, what could an eighteen-year-old learn from teenage motherhood? OH. SO. MUCH. Everything that matters, actually. I write from an airport, en route cross-country to celebrate the college commencement of my fourth graduate. WTF. When. Time. Flies. My fifteen-hour trek across three times zones, as many airports, includes ample opportunity for reflection, remembrance, and reminiscing. That’s what we mothers do, you know. Motherhood now means letting go instead of holding close; bowing out instead of battling for; sending money instead of smothering hugs.

WTF? Where did the time go?

The time for staying up all night wiping the fevered brow of your suffering baby…

The time devoted to daily Chronicles of Narnia bedtime readings, much to the children’s impatient chagrin…

The time spent surveying the winsome wonder of your son’s electrical concoction, which we discovered was wired perfectly when he plugged the contraption in, and the electric shock sent him sailing ten feet across my office, while I squealed -half glee, half horror- acknowledging simultaneously my little inventor’s success and potential, demise!

Then, that awful thing.

The time I failed miserably at motherhood. Like, really screwed up.

Now, on the healing side of that thing, removed by time’s passing yet present at celebratory times such as this, when divided parties gather together for the sake of one graduating child.

WTF. When Time Flies, take it all in. Sort it out later. Life is but a vapor. I

just finished tucking her in. Then letting her go. And now, watching her soar.

Whether one has children or not, we all had a Mother.

Mitch Albom, renowned author of books like The Five People You Meet In Heaven, and For One More Day, says this in the latter, "...behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins."

Perhaps that relationship remains ambiguous, unfulfilled or full of angst, glorious or something else. Maybe Hallmark, despite decades in the Mother’s Day biz, has not the appropriate card to express one’s thoughts. My children still seek the section labeled, “Cards for Narcissistic-Leaning Moms.” Maybe Mother screwed up, big time. Maybe Mother tried her best, then some. Maybe Mother is no longer around, or never was.

Yet. Mother carried us into…if not through…

Let us give her that.

Let us celebrate the carrying.

Let us land on this notion that when time flies, we intentionally choose what remnants remain. We recall. We reclaim. We reframe.

Honor her.