It seems like "madre" should be a masculine word, like "mano" is feminine, for they are interchangeable, hand and mother, the mothers are the hands, the spine, the structure, after all, the caress, the slap, the hand over the mouth, the hand to mouth.
I drift in and out of mothering, the way my mother perhaps did, although I think she was mostly out. Lately, as you say, I have been deep into other things, although I know the lesson there--it has been hammered into me by innumerable novels and films: The Piano, The Good Mother, Erin Brockovitch, The Hours--if you want something for your self, some identity or uniqueness of being, some singularity of purpose or intent that diverges from the motherly path, the wifely path, the subservient path, someone always gets sick or dies, or hit by a car, or at least scarred for life, so that you will never forget your brief and deadly foray into selfhood without a shocking and visceral reminder.
So I tread on this very thin ice on mother's day, half of me wanting to hold them close forever, to deflect every harm, some secret part of me wanting towards that day of freedom when they have been delivered safely into the hands of adulthood. But that's a myth also, isn't it? They will always be children, heavy, beautiful, weighty, delicious burdens, the way all exquisite burdens should be, after all, requiring something us that seems at times more than we have to give.
Happy Mother's Day to you, my friend. You have earned your place among the saints.
