Mother's Day

When I think about Mother's Day I think about real mothers with real human children, plus I think about my own mother, of course. I didn't use to think of myself as a mother because we don't have children. One Mother's Day several years ago Eddie and I were in the grocery store and as we were leaving, one of the store employees handed me a red rose and said, "Happy Mother's Day". Rather than tell him that I am not a mother, I just took the rose and said thank you. On the way out to the car, I told Eddie that I felt sort of funny taking the rose under false pretenses since we don't have children and I'm not a mother. Eddie said the sweetest thing. He said, "Well, you are the kittie's mother". It just reminded me once again why I love this man so much. Right now we just have one cat, Heckle, and at that time we had four cats.

This morning I was reading one of my favorite blogs over at A Fanciful Twist and saw that she has offered some of her wonderful artwork for free in the form of cards that can be printed from a pdf file. One of the cards caught my attention because it says "Mammie to all little Creatures."


I love this because if anything describes me it has to be this. Eddie and I don't have human children, but we both love all creatures. Cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels, and all of God's creatures. It's true we have not had children, but all of these creatures are here on earth and God has placed them in our care. I feel it's my responsibility to take care of them as best I can within my means. I feel that they give us so much unconditional love.

I guess this post is for all of the men and women out there who are childless, whether by choice or not by choice, who have been made to be feel badly or guilty for not having children by people who do. People should never judge other people because we don't know what their circumstances are. I had a miscarriage when I was a young wife. We later decided that we wouldn't have children. There have been many times that I've wondered how old our child would be now, and what kind of personality he or she would have had. I've had people who don't know my circumstances make snide comments about the fact that I don't have children, so I can't possibly know what it's like. Well, no I don't have human children, so I don't know what that's like, but I do know the unconditional love of a cat or a dog. My cat looks to me and Eddie when he's sick and feeling badly because he knows we will take care of him. Heckle also knows when we're feeling badly because he crawls up next to us and just quietly sits. Quietly nursing us and taking care of us.

So, when I think about Mother's Day and Father's Day I think about not only mothers and fathers with human children, but of all of the mothers (and fathers) who take care of all the little creatures that are on the earth, human or not.