All Good Mothers Have One Trait in Common

This is the day we honor the mother who bore us, reared us, laughed with us (and sometimes laughed in private at us), argued with us, taught us everything from table manners to hygiene, protected us, and believed in us. She picked us up when we fell on the playground, and quieted us or welcomed us to her bed when we had nightmares. She changed thousands of diapers, told us a thousand times to put our napkins in our lap and to chew our food with our lips closed, prepared our meals and our lunches for school, washed and dried our laundry, and drove us to dance class or football practice. She taught us nursery rhymes, read us fairy tales, told us that green shirts and blue pants clash when worn together, checked our fourth-grade homework, and answered questions ranging from “How come the sky is blue?” to “Why are boys so weird?” She applauded our accomplishments, fretted over our failures, smiled over our antics as toddlers, and wept in her bedroom when we hurt her as teenagers.

Motherhood is about love.

And love — especially maternal love — is about sacrifice.

That last sentence is an understatement of epic proportions.

Think about it.

That sacrifice doesn’t just involve the standard mom duties: the diapers, the feedings, the sleepless nights, the constant fretting over details like homework completed and braces on the teeth, the thousand and one thoughts mothers mull over about their children every two or three days.

To be sure, these are all sacrifices. They are the daily immolations of motherhood. They involve the giving up of the self for another, the pushing aside of personal desires to meet the needs of a child.

But sometimes motherhood drives women beyond even these sacrifices.

Just before dawn on April 22, 2019, nineteen-year-old Dana Scatton died from an inoperable brain tumor. In November 2017, the then pregnant teen was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Though radiation may have helped prolonged this young woman’s life, she chose to postpone treatment until after her baby’s birth, fearing for her preborn child’s health…. (Excerpt from The Virginia Star)