A Mother’s Day reflection on strength, love, and the moments that teach us who we really are.
Typically, in the moments after giving my daughter her injection of life-saving medication, I dash upstairs. Part of me is running from the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Part of me is trying to block out the sound of her cries. I put on my jewelry. I take a breath. It is our routine, and we all do our best to make it “OK.”
Kelsey has DADA2, Deficiency of Adenosine Deaminase 2, a rare autoinflammatory disease that can cause vasculitis, stroke, and bone marrow failure. It is managed, in part, through medication that must be injected. And it is her mother’s hands that hold the needle.
When Kelsey first chose me to give the injections, I didn’t believe I could do it. My husband had learned first and seemed so much more capable, so much steadier than I thought I could ever be. I told myself the comfort role suited me fine. And it did, until it didn’t.·
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One particular injection was harder than most. In truth, perhaps they all are. I usually run upstairs too quickly to sit with that truth. But this time, I stayed. And as I tried to find my footing in the sounds of laughter returning to the room, Kelsey walked over to me.
She looked at my face. She reached up and held my cheeks in her small hands.
“Mom, don’t be sad that you hurt me. You did hurt me today, but I know you love me, and that’s why. You just want me to feel better. OK? It’s OK, Mom.”
OK? Is it? The truth is, it is not really OK. It is not OK because my child’s instinct was to come comfort me. Her gentle smile and her sweet touch left me no choice but to smile back.
And isn’t that motherhood, distilled to its purest form?
As any mother knows, when your child needs you, you are simply there. You don’t think about how. You don’t wonder if you are strong enough. Inner strength and pure love take over, and somehow, you find a way to be OK. You just do it.
To all the mothers carrying something heavy right now, I see you. The ones managing diagnoses, giving injections, making impossible things feel ordinary for the sake of their children. The ones who run upstairs to breathe and come back down with a smile. You are doing something remarkable, even when it doesn’t feel that way.
I want to thank my own mother especially, because during the times I am not sure how I have made it through a hard day, a hard week, a hard year, I sit back and realize: I did it because I am her daughter.
And someday, when a cure is found and Kelsey is thriving, I hope she looks back and sees in herself a reflection of everything she has already shown me: her strength, her courage, and the grace she offered a mother who needed to be told it was going to be OK.
Happy Mother’s Day.
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