Do you realize how much your mom loves you?
I remember clearly the day I finally realized the scope of my mother’s love for me. It was ten years ago, shortly after my son Ethan was born, and I was in that hormonally emotional stage that brings our feelings to the surface and magnifies them so we can really experience them. I held Ethan in my arms, and the intensity of my love for him made me feel like I would burst.
This blogpost is a reprint of an article by Rebecca Whitecotton originally published in the May 2007 issue of Children of the New Earth magazine.
With tears of joy and connection streaming down my face, I picked up the phone and called the one person I knew would understand what I was feeling: my mom. In between sobs, I managed to choke out, “Mom, I can’t believe how much you love me.”
And she just said, “Yes. I love you that much.”
I try to tell my kids how much I love them, but they will never know what I mean until they hold their own children in their arms. I play an “I-Love-You-More” game with my 8-year-old daughter, Alison, who insists that she loves me more than I love her. She doesn’t understand that it’s not possible.
One day when I was having a particularly frustrating day and I was angry with myself for a few things I hadn’t done, Alison crawled up on my desk so she could write something on my white board. Now, this was no easy feat, considering the piles of paper and books on my desk, and not an action I normally would condone. I could have gotten angry and told her to get down, but then I would have missed the wisdom that came next.
She got a marker and started secretly writing a message, and I knew what she was going to write—“I love you more than you love me.” She finished, and with an angelic smile on her face she revealed what she had written. I looked, expecting to see what I always see, but it was different this time. My jaw dropped open as I read it.
She wrote, “Love yourself as you love me.”
The look on my face must have been a look of shock, because Alison got a worried look and started to erase it. My reaction made her think something was wrong with what she had written.
But, no, there was nothing wrong with it. In fact, it couldn’t have been more right. Could she be any more wise? I don’t know where her words came from, but they held profound meaning for me.
It was exactly what I needed to hear at the moment. I was frustrated and not very patient with myself that day. I realized when I read it that, at that moment, I loved my daughter and my son more than I loved myself. Alison saw that and was able to tap into something higher to be able to give me the message I needed to hear.
What she wrote reminded me that the most important person for me to love is myself, because without that I can give nothing to someone else.
Most of the time I’m good at loving myself, but as a mom it’s easy to get in the habit of putting yourself and your needs behind the needs of others — your family, work, friends. What she wrote reminded me that the most important person for me to love is myself, because without that I can give nothing to someone else.
It is these little reminders from my children—bits of wisdom from the mouths of babes—that remind me again and again that my children are not children in the grand scheme of things. They are wise and ancient souls who are here now as my children, but my connection with them spans thousands of years and countless lifetimes. They are not here simply to learn from me as their mother, but to teach me what they know and remind me who I really am.
I am fortunate to have a mother who also knows this, although we never spoke of our eternal connection until I was an adult.
When we discovered that we both were walking the same spiritual path and that we both believed that we had been together before, she started signing her letters and cards to me as “MomTT”, which stands for Mom – This Time. We both knew that in other lifetimes I had been the mom, or we had been brothers, or friends, or even enemies. But we had been together, and we can feel the eternal bond of love between us.
So this Mother’s Day, I’ll be sure to take Alison’s advice and remember to love myself as much as I love her, which is an incredibly huge amount.
And while I’m at it, I’ll give sincere thanks for my MomTT,, who loves me more than anyone else can, and for my childrenTT, who gift me with bits of wisdom and allow me to love them with the heart of a Mother.
I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Rebecca Whitecotton is the author of the children’s book, Child of Mine, Know This, a spiritual look at the love that bonds parents and children throughout eternity. Child of Mine, Know This received the Award of Excellence from Children of the New Earth magazine, and was called “the single most innovative children’s book to come along in ages” by Neale Donald Walsch. You can see a video of the book at https://rebeccawhitecotton.com/child-of-mine-know-this/
Rebecca’s latest work is Pull Your Self Together: A True Story of Alternate Realities, Spiritual Healing, and Dimensional Wholeness, a soul-searching inquiry into what it means to be whole.