When you look at your newborn, tiny and soft, with eyes that hold the trust of the ages and hair as soft as down, you wonder how, in an instant, you can protect this little one. You are a mother. Somewhere your subconscious tells you that new title is yours for life. You cannot get enough of soaking in the sight of the little one in your arms.

And through those first weeks at the smallest sound you go over to where your baby is sleeping to check and make sure all is well. And all the years afterward you continue to “just check” and watch that little one grow and become a mixture of what you hope and what you don’t understand. Your child asks you to look. “Look and see what I can do!” Other times they hope you won’t see what they’ve done. And on through the years, the invisible, inescapable pull set in mothers everywhere by the Creator, Himself, is a contrast of welcome and unwelcome.

This Mother’s Day I think of my own mom and I remember . . .

Our dog was giving birth to a litter of puppies in the corner of our dirt floor garage. I was elementary school-aged. My mom had called a friend so she could bring her kids over and we could all watch the miracle of birth together. We huddled together by the garage door and watched Specky during her most personal moments as she ate the membrane and licked each newborn. I was embarrassed while Mom was enthralled, but we watched because she wanted me to learn.

As I drove home through the dark streets, I could see my house lit up and a shadow in the window watching for me. I’d been out with some high school friends drinking pop and talking and laughing. It was nearly midnight. In her mind I’d been kidnapped and was struggling to escape. In my mind whatever it was I faced from imagined kidnappers held nothing to what I faced from my mother.

I carried out a few suitcases and whatever other few things I had to bring, and stashed them all in a friend’s car. I was leaving for college during a time when my residence had one phone that hung on a hallway wall. There were no emails nor texts, and long distance costs were by the call and by the minute. Kids who went to college didn’t have much contact with their parents other than letters and holidays. As we pulled away, I could see my mom in the rearview mirror. She stood in the driveway and watched us until we were out of sight.

I was in my 30’s fulfilling some duty at the front of the church, probably leading worship or some other such role. My mom had, herself, spent her life doing the same thing, though her fingers always made the piano keys sing more sweetly than mine ever did. What can I say? She had a great touch. There was mom sitting in the pew listening and watching with a slight smile. It’s possible she was thinking what could have been done to make the song sound better. It’s probable she would have been right.

When I was in my 40’s, I look up as I inserted the key into the car, and there she was at the window watching to make sure I’d made it safely from her house to my car. Granted, by now her house was in a part of town that, while not riddled with crime, held the potential for occasional trouble. I don’t know how she planned to fight off my attackers.

We’d gotten a pretty good wallop of snow, wet and heavy and high; the kind that lands folks in the hospital with a heart attack. I was feeling my 50 some years as I shoveled the layers to get to the pavement, and as I trudged, out of breath, back to the house to return the shovel to its usual place, I caught a glimpse of my mom. She’d been standing at the window watching me. Still.