Each year I search for words that are fresh and new to describe the enormity of motherhood which encourage, honor and lift up mom’s everywhere.   Then I struggle with the emotions, like all nurturing, big hearted women do, for the broken hearted women who are unable to bear children or whom have lost a child or recently lost their own mother.

Then I realize what a complicated tangled web of emotions us women weave as we try to “mother” everyone in some way that is instinctively built into our DNA.  It’s a good plight and I’ll take it as I wrestle to write something the does the most good for this world.

I want to shout “you’ve got this” to the mom’s of young children who are also working outside the home.  And “How did you do that?” to the moms who are years or decades ahead of me.

I want a hug that never ends for those hopeful mamas to be and grieving moms to know that they are loved with a never ending love.

I want those stay at home moms to know that it’s not an easy job and for all of us to find that pill that cures all the judgment we cast on ourselves and each other in our mothering ways.

I want to cheer on those moms who are crushing it with weight loss and fitness goals, as well as those breaking the glass ceilings and achieving high on the “cute for pinterest” scale.

I want to laugh (or else we’d cry) with the moms who have “you can’t make this stuff up” stories about shift day fiascos and the troubles our kids get themselves into.

And sometimes I want to forget all of that, and my own motherhood wants, and thank God for my mom who helped me get to where I am today.

And then I read the wide ranging variety of angles all the bloggers and writers around the world spill out of their hearts and see all the ways mothering happens and wonder what more can I add?

From one mom to another, I sincerely pray your mother’s day is everything you want it to be.

But there is one thing I can never say.  Because it can only come from the men who love you the most.   Your husbands…..who also happen to be firefighters.   How does that saying go?

He’ll risk his life for complete strangers, imagine what he’d do for you.

Here’s what some of the men in the Honor Guard shared about the “mothering” their wives do……