Our First Mother's Day

Sheepishly, he pushed the pink piece of construction paper folded like a card across the table. I opened it and read the words scrawled across the page in red marker:

Roses r red
Vilotes are blue
Sugar and you are sweet
And mama I love you!

Mama. He usually called me Kristin. When his dad and I got engaged Brandon said he’d call me mom but after the wedding he said it was too hard because he was used to calling me Kristin. I understood; his dad and I dated for more than a year before we were married. I could see how a 13 year-old would find the shift difficult. But deep down I wondered … was it just a change in vocabulary that was too hard? Would we truly develop a mother – child bond? These questions rolled around in my heart on this, my first Mother’s Day.

The waiter came to the table and took our order. The restaurant was the white table cloth kind, a treat after church to celebrate the day. I opened the card again, read the words and smiled. Then all of a sudden Brandon outstretched his hand, in it he held a small grey box.

“Here” he said. “Open it. And when someone asks you where you got it, tell them your son gave it to you.”

The treasure inside was a sweet, silver heart with a small cross in the center. All those fears rumbling in my heart quieted and I realized this wasn’t just my first Mother’s Day; it was our first Mother’s Day.

Today, six years after I received my first Mother’s Day Heart Necklace, I received another. A beautiful silver heart on which four colored birthstone’s hang, one for each of us: Robb, Kristin, Brandon & Matthew.

When Brandon asked me why I wasn’t wearing the necklace he gave me many years ago I told him my heart and our family had grown bigger since our first mother’s day. But the fact that he asked reminded me that on our first Mother’s Day, he gave me more than a necklace, he gave me a piece of his heart.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms’s who carry a piece of their children’s heart in their own.

Kristin