Mother's Day 2006 was the last time I gave my mother a gift ... for any reason.

I will never forget the bittersweet smile she gave me as she carefully peeled the tape open, trying not to rip the wrapping paper. She sighed as she stared at the latest Andrea Bocelli Album in her hands. She loved his voice, his gentle power that moved her soul. We both knew she would probably never listen to it; but, at that point, I still had not accepted the truth. Andrea Bocelli was a delusional hope of a daughter begging her mother to keep fighting, to wait for a miracle. I was a young mother of an 18-month-old boy and six months pregnant with my second son, and I was terrified.

She passed away two weeks later. Andrea Bocelli was never opened.

All of my memories revolve around that time stamp: the "before" memories and the "after" memories. Some of the new memories, the "after" ones, have been terribly difficult, painful even, to create with my children, husband and other family members.

She will never be in special moments and occasions or the pictures that will survive us all. I know this, yet, I still look for her on park benches where she'd be reading a book as I play with my children. I know this, yet, I still search for her face in our pictures and even dial her phone number to tell her some exciting news or to ask for her advice. I know this, yet, some days I forget.

I forget because it doesn't make sense to me. Life without her is hard and sometimes unbearable. We don't get manuals when we become mothers ourselves. We have mothers to help us through those first few weeks of sleepless nights. We have mothers to call when our kids declare their hatred for us for the first time and break our hearts. We have mothers to walk us through letting go as our babies drive to college 2,000 miles away. We are supposed to have mothers to show us the way.

But, I dont.

I am motherless. This truth affects nearly every part of my life in ways only those who are motherless could ever understand.

Unfortunately, it has forever altered Mother's Day. What was once a beautiful time of honor and celebration has become, quite frankly, a horrible and dreaded day for the past ten years.

I know I'm not alone. Whether you are motherless because of your mother's passing or you have an estranged relationship with your mom, you know the conflicting feelings all to well that come as Mother's Day approaches each year. You and I know the holiday will never be the same.

I have struggled to find joy in Mother's Day, even though I have my own four beautiful children who love me and who are truly excited to celebrate me on this day.

I have prayed for the emotional strength each year to simply "get through it" as I am showered with homemade cards, treats and sticky hugs and kisses galore. But my strength has never been a match for the grief that floods my heart as I remember my own mother and as my defenses crumble to the floor.

I do not delight in the talk my compassionate and loving husband has to have with my little ones every Mother's Day: "Kids, Mommy knows you love her and she loves you so much! She is so grateful for all of your gifts and cards. But, we need to be extra sensitive and loving because Mommy is also sad today. She doesn't have a mom to celebrate today, and it really hurts her heart."

I dont want this to be their dominant memory of Mother's Day. I want to be stronger than the pain.

I know I need to overcome this, so my prayers this year have been different. I am not praying for emotional strength. I have been praying to find a way to have joy in my heart and hope in my soul for my husband, my children and especially ... for myself. I feel strongly I have found the way.

I have been inspired by Heaven and my mother to forget my own sorrows and to turn my focus to the women I still have in my life - women who have loved, mentored and mothered me.

This year and for every year after I will honor my own mother by celebrating the living "mothers" I have been blessed with throughout my life. Each year I will choose a woman who has been a mother to me in various ways, no matter her age. I will send her flowers and mail a good, old-fashioned letter. The pages will be filled with my love for her, who she is to me and my gratitude for having her in my life. I will choose a "mother" I can call when my heart is broken, who walks by my side through the hard stuff and who, with wisdom, gently shows me the way.

Because of her, I am no longer motherless.

The post To the motherless on Mother’s Day appeared first on FamilyToday.

Thirteen years ago, I married a remarkable man. He was physically, mentally and spiritually strong. His stellar sense of humor captivated me from the moment we met. I knew I would laugh every day of my life with him. He was loyal and respectful. His brilliant mind aimed for a career in law and possibly politics. He was gentle and giving, patient and wise. Our future was bright and I loved him then.

Life's experiences, trials and opportunities have molded him into a different person. He has learned lessons from his own mistakes and the mistakes of others, including mine. He possesses different habits, qualities and characteristics today than he did all those years ago. No person can go through this life and not become a revised version of him or herself.

So when we marry, and we make vows and commitments to our loves, and for some even to God, do we understand in that moment, how very different each of us will be five, 10, 30 years down the road? Do we truly comprehend the adjustments and remodeling that will be required of us to remain in a unified marriage? I know I didn't.

We had fights about the important things, and lots of fights about nothing. We had losses - big ones. The biggest loss for me was my mother - a loss that changed me irrevocably. He was very patient and gentle. At that time I couldn't always give 100 percent; I was barely giving anything. Years of this exhausted him and inevitably changed him too. We struggled spiritually, physically, emotionally. We have individual pains and sorrows that have fused into one, both feeling the other's anguish. There are plenty of opportunities to hold on to mistakes and faults and to use them to disconnect, to give up and end what once was love.

We faced the choice to end or not to end. One night during a serious conversation, he said, "Do you still love me? Do you still want to be married to me? Do you still want to be a family?" Each of us, terrified of the other's response, asked these exact questions with calm and open hearts. I whispered, "I love you as a person and the father of our two sons, but I'm not in love with you." His feelings were identical. Unsure if things could be fixed, we both did still want to try.

We fought for our marriage, for our family. It has taken years to get to where we are today - but where we are is incredibly amazing and fulfilling. He is still all of the things he was when we married, just with altered and additional qualities. We are each other's priority, defending each other over our own family and friends. His career aspirations of old have vanished, replaced with dreams that have become reality and have taken him to places he never thought possible. He is so much more now than he was when I married him. He is so much better. And none of it is the result of my own attempts at changing him. He became who he is today because of his choices; his own desires to change.

In the years after that uncertain conversation, I have made a determined choice to step back and love my husband for who he is, just as he is, in any moment, every day. I simply let him be. Then I started to positively change who I was, who I had become. It was excrutiating some days and didn't come naturally. The more I focused on my own faults and correcting my behavior towards him, the less I saw his faults, and the more my love grew for him. Every day I made a conscious decision to stop and replace any critical thoughts about my husband that crept into my mind. As I did this, my natural thoughts regarding him became more positive and loving. Thoughts of his strengths, memories of love and laughter, and desires to serve him soon became constants in my mind. Malice and anger had been replaced with devotion and compassion. I had learned to love my husband once more, and even purer than I had before.

The biggest change that we both have made has been this: We deeply, without judgment, accept each other as we are. We accept each other's weaknesses, faults and annoying habits. Supporting each other through struggles, whatever the nature, without holding judgment, has been marriage-changing. It is a gift to be able to sit across from the man you love and say, "I am seriously struggling. I can't do this alone. I need help," and then to have him hold you, wipe your tears and love you even more than he did an hour prior to your confessions. This is what we fought for.

And today, we have a new love; a different and genuine love that has been strengthened through both joy and difficulties. It is a love only he and I could ever understand. I am a better woman because of him, and for him. He is a better man because of and for me. My hope is that my own actions and love for him will only ever encourage and allow him to be who he is destined to be. Only he knows my soul so deep and has captured my heart once again. Only him have I ever seen; only him shall I ever love.

This article was originally published on undefined It has been republished here with permission.

The post How I fell back in love with my husband appeared first on FamilyToday.

I stay home to care for our children. Therefore, I am a luxury to my husband. This is the point of view of an insightful article I read several weeks ago. I whole-heartedly agree with the author of this piece, and so does my husband.

But after discussing this, The Mr. and I agreed she was missing a very vital point.

I get to stay home with my children. I get to wake their sleepy heads every early morning and be the first to hug and kiss them, the first to say "It's a beautiful day. Now rise and shine."

I get to be the last person they see on their way out the door into the outside world. I get to be home when they get home from school. And some days, I get to pick them up from school and hear their stories fresh off the press.

I get to chauffeur them around the city to their activities and passions, and sometimes I get to sit and watch them be amazing little beings.

I get to take G-Man outside in the middle of any day and fly with him on the swings, leap and jump on the trampoline, or chase birds around the yard. I get to plan healthy meals for my family, and prepare dinners where we can sit around our table and share with each other, learn from each other and listen to each other.

I get to sing to them at bedtime and be awed at PixieDoll's ability to memorize songs so quickly. It is a joy listening to her sing along with me. I get to tuck them in, say good night and be the last person they hear from before they drift away into wondrous dreams.

I get to do these things, and so much more for one reason only: Because The Mr., my husband, is a luxury to me.

I have done the working outside the home and be a full-time mom thing. I've done it for many years. I've had a nanny before. I have missed wake-ups and bedtimes, drop-offs and simple middle of the day adventures and everything in between. It was hard to miss those things, but it was necessary for me to help work our new business and turn it into everything we envisioned it to be. So I did.

In April 2013, I got to quit working outside the home. This was a hard decision. I loved being involved with our business, knowing what was going on, having that strong connection with The Mr. and watching our business that we built from the ground up, thrive and grow and expand before our very eyes.

I had a place, I knew my place and I was afraid of losing it. I quit for my littles. Our G-Man was due in May 2013, and after much discussion, The Mr. and I decided it was time for me to be home, really home, with all four of our amazing replicas.

Honestly, it scared me a little. I had a routine with work, with the children, and it was all changing. I would not have that two-days-a-week escape to work where I enjoyed adult conversations and challenges of a different nature.

I knew it was time for a new adventure, so I dove right in - suffocated a little bit - and eventually found my way above the surface and caught my breath. These past 18 months I have truly become a luxury to my husband. And I love it. I love that I get to do all these things I do. Monotonous as they seem at times, they are important, and I wouldn't want anyone else doing my job. No matter, how hard it is some days.

I also know that not everyone has the luxury of their spouse being home full time, and that is OK. No one is a bad parent for having to work outside the home. Me, becoming a luxury to The Mr., is simply what was right for our family.

However, I would not even have the option of doing what I do if it were not for The Mr. He works tirelessly, sometimes into the early hours of the next day, as that is when China is awake. He has turned his dream into a successful reality that allows me to not have to work. He has given me the choice to be or not to be a luxury to him. But most importantly, he supports me in my decision. He loves that I am home for everything. He has peace in his soul when work brings travels abroad, knowing that all our precious littles are safely cared for and loved to no measure.

His support and love for my decision to be home gives me the freedom to do it without guilt. I am free of stress and pressure to provide additional income for our family. My job, work and focus is our family, our children and our success as a family together.

Sometimes it is hard to see some of the perks and benefits of being home, day after day, when you are in the thick of it all.

Recently, we had an experience in California at Champion's gymnastics meet. Our drive to Cali was when we talked about the above-mentioned article, so it was fresh on both our minds. It was the end of the meet, and all the gymnasts in attendance had the privilege to participate in a mini-camp with some amazing trainers. They invited the parents onto the floor for a closer look and hear what they were being taught.

It was fantastic.

As I sat there watching Champion, flip and turn and stretch his body in unnatural ways, The Mr. leaned over and said, "This is why you are a luxury to me and to our family. Champion is here today because you are the luxury of seeing that his old gym wasn't right, that something was off there, and that he needed something different to help him reach his potential. You were the one who watched his practices, talked to coaches and felt that things weren't right. You were there looking out for Champion and made the right decision to move to a new gym. He is where he is today, because of you. There is no other person in the world who could have seen, felt and acted on those things. That is exactly why you are a luxury to all of us. Thank you for that."

Cue tears; me crying, right there in the middle of a gymnastics floor, trying not to look pathetic and failing.

His words struck my heart and validated everything I do for our family. I then explained to him, just what I have already said. I can only be a luxury as long as he is a luxury to me. So, my dear husband, thank you for being my luxury.

The post I am a luxury but not without him appeared first on FamilyToday.