The Mother Craft

While in college at the University of Arizona, I lived in an apartment complex my sophomore year that was one step away from being a dormitory and one step above being condemned.  But it was freedom.  I lived with three other girls and a rabbit named Merlin.  It was during this year of college that life began to ramp up - dating, partying, troubles.  Fun was on-call like an ER doctor.  Our apartment sat perched above the complex pool and we would spend hours sitting on our balcony watching our ever-expanding world play out before our eyes.  And at least once a day, we would watch overhead as the "Mother Craft" hovered slow and low over our apartment, looking much like the Mighty Eagle from Angry Birds.  This was a huge military transport plane flying training exercises over the Tucson desert en route to its nest at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.  We would laugh hysterically, usually aided by some form of intoxication, saying that the Mother Craft was coming to take us home.  Those were some incredibly awesome days.

Nowadays, the term mother craft has a different meaning to me.  Many parts of being a mom come naturally to me.  Squeezing my kids, feeling their pains, not wanting them to fall off the ledge their little feet walk across.  They are little satellites of my heart, floating around in the world.  But there are aspects to motherhood that leave me searching for answers and wondering if I really do know best.  When to yell and when to simply laugh?  When to worry and when to dismiss?  When to take action and when to let the path unfold?  There is a constant monologue in my head, when I work, when I drive, when I lay down to sleep as to how I can do better by my kids.

As a mom of two sons, who will some day grow into husbands and fathers, my goals have become more clear as six years have flown by.  I want them to do well in school, but not because I necessarily care about their grades.  I want them to have friends, but not because I want them to be popular.  I want them to be strong, but not because they need to be the starting quarterback.  This mother wants all of those things for her children because she want them to truly know happiness.  Self confidence.  Camaraderie.  Empowerment.  When I take my last breath, I will not hope they have found the material and monetary spoils that earthly life offers.  My parting wish will be that they have found joy in their lives and run wild with it in their hearts. 

The craft of being a mother is intricate, complex and filled with emotion.  A close friend recently lost her first baby.  Another dear friend just gave birth to her second.  A best friend just came home from the hospital after her second child began having seizures just like his older brother.  A family friend just learned her daughter will attend Stanford on a full-ride.  With waves like these, how do we perfect this craft? 

I think the blurry word I see off in the distance is telling me this:  Instinct.