Happy Mother's Day!

I was once again in an airport today, traveling back from a few days off with my spouse.

I was missing being with my children on Mother's Day. I wished the woman who checked us in "Happy Mother's Day." For a moment, we had a sense of woman to woman connection. I smiled "Happy Mother's Day" to the two women TSA agents working as well. It happened again. I wished the woman behind me in line "Happy Mother's Day" and the woman who I bought the newspaper from.

In those exchanges, we recognized something in each other. As mothers, we knew we knew the joys and the sorrows that come from loving another more than our whole being. I knew that they knew; they knew that I knew what someone wrote a long time ago: "that having a child is making the decision to have your heart beat on the outside of your body."

Blessings to all of you who are mothers -- and all of you who are helping nurture new generations in whatever ways. Blessings to the women who nurture and sustain me.