With Mother’s Day only a few days away, naturally my thoughts turn to my mother—like everyone’s thoughts, I assume, turn to their mother. Naturally, too, my thoughts turn to the mother of my children, my wife, whose motherhood is certainly a blessing for me, almost as much as it is for my children…maybe more, but in a different way.

At the same time, I importantly differentiate between “mother” and “motherhood.” Technically, “mother” is someone who has given birth to a child…the result of an act; but motherhood is a continual state of being that encompasses physical, emotional, spiritual, psychic, even surreal benefits. Motherhood is an amazement: someone who both gives you life and then sacrifices her own to see that your life is safe, joyous, and successful. Real motherhood is a special quality, like my father’s idea about heroism: doing more than one’s duty, more than what’s expected…all for the love of one’s child. Motherhood creates otherworldly happenings: the mother who senses across the miles an injury to her child; the mother who lifts a car off her child; the mother who works multiple jobs or goes nights without sleep or risks her life for the benefit of her child. Real motherhood ineffably links lives to one another.

I frequently hear stories that horrify me about women who don’t have that special quality of motherhood despite being, technically, mothers. Women whose children suffer or long for the love, strength, support, and sacrifices of motherhood. I hear reports about criminals, rapists, murderers who hated their mothers or never knew them…and I compassionately think, “Without the benefits of a mother’s love, how could anyone prosper, even survive?” Yet I also hear stories about people who prosper despite their mothers’ shortcomings or the early loss of their mothers; I pityingly think, “How could they have succeeded without a mother’s love to buoy them up?”

I fear that a blog about Mother’s Day will be too trite, too corny…because the quality of motherhood is too essential to be evaluated, too precious to be defined. The racks in card stores are filled with trite, corny, pretentious cards trying to express the inexpressible…in 1976 in her Saturday Night Live monologue, Madeline Kahn explained it simply: “There just doesn’t seem to be any way to repay…my mother gave me birth…and I gave her a scarf!”

*My mother in the midst of her motherhood.*

Because in my life, the motherhood that my mother provided me was as essential as food, as life-sustaining as water. Yes, she gave me birth, and then she gave me love and faith and knowledge and security and understanding...she nursed me through illness, coached me through dating, helped me through school, hugged me through disappointment, praised me for success, and encouraged me through failure. Of course, she wasn’t looking for repayment because there isn’t any…even though we all keep trying.

Of a million stories I could tell, one is clearest: I visited my mother in the hospital at the end of her battle with cancer. As I was preparing to leave for the night, I said to her, “I love you.” She replied, “I love you, too.” Only as a tease, I asked her, “Do you really? Are you sure?” She simply but very emphatically answered, “Oh, yes, I’m sure.” As I walked to my car I realized that I was sure, too; a certainty I’ve relied upon my whole life.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms whose motherhood is an amazement!