What Is Motherly Love?

Mother’s Day is a celebration of mums for all they do for their children and their family: for their untiring patience, selflessness, love, commitment and dedication that comes with raising a family and being a mum.

How does anyone put into words adequately what it means to be a mum? That’s a challenging question. As a mum to Miranda and Matthew – the two most precious gifts I have ever been given, all I can do is share my personal story of what it means to me to be their mum. I’ll try to provide some wisdom that hopefully comes from having been a mum for almost 39 of my 56 years and I’ll also share about my mum and mum-in-law, their incredible impact on my life and the love I was so blessed to share with them.

I think as human beings one of the most important things we can do in our lives is to celebrate our loved ones regularly (our children, our parents, siblings, partner/spouse and other relatives and friends), not just on special days like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or Valentine’s Day. If my years on this planet have taught me anything it is that we never know what life is going to bring or when our loved ones might be taken from us.
So often, we take our family (and friends) for granted, thinking they will always be with us…. they won’t.

The gift we can all give the ones we love is our presence and our time… Time is one of only a few things, that once given, we can never get it back so when people give you their time, it really is such a precious gift from the heart.

Mother’s Day is a day that is always a little bitter sweet for me. As a mum, I celebrate Miranda and Matthew and the joy of being their mum and I also celebrate my mum and mum-in-law and all they were to me. My mum died at age 50 when I was almost 18 and pregnant with Miranda. I loved my mum dearly. She was a great mum, she was also an incredibly hard worker; both my parents were. Mum’s determination and willingness to give anything a go taught me so much as a child. Mum always told me: “If you are going to do something, do it right, or don’t do it at all”. I have passed those words of wisdom onto (actually, to be fair, pretty much drilled it into) both Miranda and Matthew and asked them to always stretch themselves to set a high standard in all they do.

My mum also instilled in me the belief that nothing is impossible. I hope I have passed that onto my children. I took that belief a little further with Miranda and Matthew and have told them to always “Let their little lights shine”. I believe both do that incredibly and I am so proud of who Miranda and Matthew are at their soul level, what they stand for and their incredibly genuine, caring, open and loving hearts. As a mum, all I ever wanted was for my children to be caring, responsible, independent and loving people, and they certainly are that and more. I always say: “Matty would give his last cent (and ours) to anyone who needed it”, and he would!

What a blessing our children are to my husband and my life. Being a parent is a miraculous journey – a journey of highs and lows, of heartache, forgiveness, of pure joy and adulation, but mostly of love. To be and feel loved by your children and to love them back unconditionally, is one of life’s true blessings….

There aren’t any parenting manuals and as parents I feel most of us simply do what is best for our children and family. Life throws up so much for people and as we dance through the chaos of life and parenting (if we choose) we only ever know what we know and do what we do with the knowledge we have. We don’t know what we don’t know, and in many instances, if we knew better, I believe we would do better as parents.

I think sometimes we think our parents are infallible. The truth is, they’re not. They are fallible. They are human beings, being human, doing the best they can with the knowledge they have.

Losing my mum altered my life immeasurably. Each year when Mother’s Day comes around, it is yet another reminder (and there are many) of the blessings I had in having had my mum for almost 18 years. It is also a reminder of the time we didn’t get to share together and some days are harder than others when I mourn the loss of what could have been. I mourn that my children never got to meet or know their grandmother, that I never got to share my babies with my mum or even share a cuppa and a cuddle as an adult woman with my mum. I mourn that my mum never got to see my children grow into the beautiful souls they are today and feel so blessed that as Miranda became a mum, I got to experience with her what my mum never did with me. What a beautiful mum my darling Randa is to her three gorgeous little boys and what a blessing it is to be their “Nonnie”.

My mother-in-law (who was a mum to so many) became like a second mum to me after my mum died. We shared a special bond as she too lost her mum when she was very young. We would laugh, cry and do things together that I never got to do with my mum. Miranda and Matthew loved their Nan Kerr as I know they would have also loved my mum. Nan Kerr was, like all mums, the glue that held the family together. We recently lost her and my father-in-law (January and February 2021) so we are now the “Elders” of the family trying to fill that gap and keep the memory of those we have lost and loved alive in our children and grandchildren as life pushes forward.

On this day, I celebrate all mums, but in particular I celebrate my mum and all she did for me as I would not be the woman I am but for her and for her love.

Love and light,
Therese Kerr