It happens eventually in everyone's life.
Strep throat.
I am the proud mother of a soon-to-be 4-year-old. She started school this year and therefore was thrown into the deep end of the germ pool. Until last week she really hadn't gotten sick. As a mom with a defunct immune system, I was quite relieved and proud (although I've been sick twice already, that's beside the point...).
Then it happened. I pulled up in the carpool line and out came my sweet girl with flushed red cheeks and a slight cough. Her teacher sidled over to the car and said, "I think she's sick."
I nursed and babied her all weekend long, but Monday morning came and she was still feverish. It was time to see The Doctor. After a cold slog to the hospital, I discovered that the usual offices were closed due to Veteran's Day. We spent most of our day in the urgent care betwixt other sick kids and varying degrees of sick adults all huddled in black chairs trying to not accidentally touch each other.
I must admit, my daughter was a trooper. I came armed with a backpack full of dolls and coloring books to keep her entertained. She didn't complain, she smiled at the nurses and didn't cry or get upset once during the whole day (I almost did, but again...beside the point). She had strep throat. After a kerfuffle with some labs, we eventually get the big pink bottle of antibiotics. And that was the rest of my week gone, taking care of a sick kiddo.
This hospital is the same hospital that I went to as a child. It's where I had my tonsils taken out at age 4. It's where I was treated for chicken pox and poison ivy (multiple times). It's where I was when I was told I had cancer. It's where I gave birth to my daughter. I think it's fair to say I'm a regular.
As I was sitting in a little room with my daughter, coloring pictures and telling her to keep her shoes on for the fourth time in a row, I thought about my mom. As I say, I have been to this particular hospital for mild and serious reasons more times than I can count. The majority of those times, my mother was right next to me, quietly reading a murder mystery. She took me on all of those early trips as a child. She drove me even when I was old enough to drive myself as a teenager. She took off work to accompany me because I wasn't convinced I actually knew how to get there on my own (because she always drove!). And she was sitting next to me (yet another murder mystery in hand) when I got my first chemo treatment at a clinic next door. Even now, as a fully-fledged adult, she often comes with me and Alice for our treks to the hospital.
Now I choose to follow in her footsteps. There is very little that happens in my daughter's life that I'm not front row for. This is probably true for most moms of littles. However, my mom was present for everything, well beyond an age that she had to be. I can't imagine that I will be any different. When I was in marching band and she stood on top of the cab of her pickup truck to take a picture of me in a Christmas parade, I was embarrassed. When she drove six hours to watch me receive my bachelor's degree, I was proud. When she stood by my side for seventeen hours and watched my child be born, I was relieved. And when she watched that first chemo treatment get pumped into me, I was thankful.
Being a mom is hard work. Don't let anyone tell you different! The demands are high and the hours are long. It's a lot of getting up in the middle of the night to help a child. It's a lot of driving here and there for this and that. It's a lot of diapers in the early days. A lot of diapers. It's a long time before you ever hear a word from that baby and then they go and say "Daddy" first! And, I haven't even gotten to the teenage years, which seem to be a tribulation all their own. Then your child grows up and becomes an adult, and you still aren't done. My mom is proof of that!
So I want to say to all the moms out there making trips to the hospital or nursing a kiddo with strep throat, packing school lunches and changing diapers: thank you. To all the dads and grandparents doing the job of a mom because maybe the mom isn't around to do it: thank you. It's the moments big and small that make a mom.
And to my mom: thank you. I love you!