The Mother in ME

I have always been a very emotional, sympathetic person, especially when it comes to people being in pain or feeling sadness. I think it started when when my friends in high school lost their mother to cancer and it continues now that my terminally ill MIL has made our home her home. I cried excruciatingly for those friends (don't know where it came from!) and still cry for anyone's loss or pain in the journey of loss or any situation that touches my spirit. I can't keep it together!

We are all spiritual beings and I am finding that the connection we have that is the most valuable and palpable is the spiritual connection. You can't deny that. The communication between spirits causes some kind of serious energy inside me that comes out my eyeballs. Every. Time. Maybe I watch a little too much Crossing Over but I still know it's true.

Rhett laughs at how I cry at tv shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition or Sex and the City (go ahead and laugh now because that is meant to show how serious this is) and I get teary at any commercial that shows pain, suffering or even just the joy of any aspect of family or connection of that spirit (motherhood, friendship, etc). I can't change this about me, although sometimes I wish I could tone it down a bit.

It was free-reign during my pregnancies, but now I do what I can to use it to my advantage by channeling that emotion into my life and trying to make myself a better person. A better, less blubbering-over-everything person.

I cried as I read cjane's post about the music that became the anthem of their lives at the time that she was dealing with her sister's accident and cried while I listened to the music sample at the bottom and cried at the thought of the serious concern that mother will have for her children and not for herself as her burns start to heal and then cried myself to the Deseret Book signing on Saturday. It was for the compilation of essays about motherhood that bloggers have put together in a book called The Mother in Me. Half of the sales were going to go to the Nie Recovery Fund and it was a good cause to cry myself to.

I have to admit that I didn't have a dollar to my name and couldn't afford to even drive to the mall but I still went anyway, not at all sure why. An old friend of mine's wife, Heather Herrick, wrote one of the essays and I was curious to read how she saw it, from a small apt in NYC with three children and a husband with amazing talent trying to make a name for himself. I would say that I was there for my friend, Heather, but having her in my friend's list on Facebook might not be enough to consider her the kind of friend who you charge a book for on your already-too-high-of-a-balance credit card. I guess I could have read the essay and left without the book but something in me was saying that I needed that book for myself and for the help it may give that other struggling mother with her own bills to pay. And I don't even know Stephanie or Courtney, but I feel their pain and I cry for the challenges in their life right now.

So there I was, in line with my two little ones and my brother who met me at the mall and before I knew what I was doing, the book was in my hand and I was taking pictures of cjane and writing on a paper crane to Nie.

And before I could even pretend that the book was really mine and I would just hold it for safe keeping (and put it back on the shelf afterwards),

they were all signing it

and giving me great smiles

and telling me that I looked familiar

and I was snacking at the food table

and then I was winning a prize from the raffle...

and then it was all over

and I was charging that sucker and not looking back.

My tears had brought me there, I held back my tears while I was there and I've cried more tears since I've left there, but at least I have contributed and feel part of helping a mother in need. Maybe it's my way of helping myself. Maybe forget yourself and go help others...

But as a mother, I don't know how I could NOT show compassion and be a part of that. Something changes when you give birth and begin the struggle of fighting the old you and embracing the new you and begin shaping your life around precious little spirits who are a part of you. Serious, emotional changes. It's that spiritual connection again, I swear it and it's even stronger because their spirits are so fresh and so new and untainted. I'm still fighting that fight but I do it with tears of joy as well as pain and hope that I will one day not need to fight so much. I mean, look at that sweet bald head!

Maybe I should start reading that book.

Maybe I should let my MIL read it too.

And maybe being a emotional being is a wonderful thing.

Maybe.