On Motherhood

I have a friend who cannot have children. Her gorgeous body took her on a wild trip when she was thirty-something, and when she reached her destination, she had undergone total ovarian failure. Her way of dealing with this tragic outcome has been, I think, to convince herself that she was never going to be a parent anyway. Maybe not, but I can't help feeling sorry for her.

When I think of being childless, I think of loneliness, despair, lack of purpose, and deprivation from the overwhelming joys of being my son's mother. Granted, if someone were to watch an interminable video of the 40 years I have spent as Mom, the viewer might be hard put to identify all the joy. What I would say is, it is far easier to see conflict, strife, worry and disappointment than it is to see joy.

One of our friends has an autistic child. Although he has achieved an impressive level of functioning on the autism spectrum, he does not have the ability to connect with people; he does not hold conversations, does not show pleasure or love. Those facts evoke pity for his mother from my childless friend. But I can see the joy his mom gets from the smallest things, like turning toward a person who says something to him. Mothers love who they get -- at least most of us do.

Motherhood for me has been about feeling and watching my son grow from a zygote to a fine adult man. It has been teaching him to read when he was only four; tossing his very first pitch to his outsized plastic whiffle bat; inhaling his scent, until puberty took the pleasure out of that.

Motherhood for me has been hundreds of baseball games, football games, skating contests, swim meets, snack shacks and car pools to away games.

Motherhood for me has been tears shed when he felt obtuse and rejected; when he felt the first stings of racial intolerance; when the first girl he asked out said no. There were lots of tears, actually, but they were just as often the joyful kind as not.

Motherhood for me has been life-saving. When my second marriage fell apart, I plunged into the deepest depression of my life and feared I would never come out of it. My thoughts of suicide, once expressed to my shrink, nearly landed me in the hospital. If I had gone to the hospital or if I went ahead and took an early trip to heaven, my son would be devastated. He had already been destroyed by the divorce. So, I took the pills, I doubled the therapy and I DECIDED to get better -- for my son.

Motherhood for me has been extremely fulfilling. My son is a multi-talented ex-pro baseball player, a college graduate, an eloquent speaker and a leading-man type actor who fails to see his appeal. That is so charming. At 40, he still seeks my advice when he is feeling emotionally fragile and he still thinks I hung the moon.

My fondest memory of my entire stint as Mom is the Mother's Day when my son was 18 years old. Even after the divorce, my ex would take my son and me out for brunch; it was a long tradition. This time, my son asked his Dad to allow him to do the honors by himself. He made the reservations . He put on a coat and tie. He bought me flowers and opened the car door for me to enter and leave the car. He pulled out my chair. And he even ordered for me, after quietly asking what I'd like.

Most of the time, on these occasions, I could see the point at which my son would have had enough, would want to get home and start doing the things that occupied his time. But this time, he steered the car into the Oakland (CA) hills and just drove and chatted about things he knew mattered to me. We drove for more than an hour and he never seemed bored or distracted. It was the most treasured Mother's Day gift I have ever received.

Motherhood has been the greatest gift of my life.