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Mother's Day 2012

Moving boxes frame Will's bedroom and

Penske vans line 121st Street while parades

of light blue gowns astride their parents float

down Broadway off to New Yorkers' favorite

weekend meal: brunch. Mine's in a paper bag,

and it's Absolute delicious, a whole-wheat

everything bagel that my favorite baker handed

me fresh from the wall-sized oven in the back of

the dive off 108th. He smiled, looked down at my

sleeping beauty in the crimson City Mini, and

wished me a Happy Mother's Day. Yes, it is.

My little Will, almost two, joined me at the Wild West

playground in Central Park after church. Crumbs from

his favorite poppyseed muffin lingered until he slid down

the slide on his belly, one of his hundreds of mannerisms

that I have fallen in love with this year. We swung for a

hot minute, got the beautiful big yellow shovel yanked from

our hands in the sandbox, and bounced on a precarious wagon

until his eyelids drooped and he begged for his paci.

We strolled along Central Park West, the shaded side,

from 84th to 107th and enjoyed the feeling of

really living in this city. We did it. Together. We did it.

A week from now we will be in Chattanooga,

having celebrated a birthday and two graduations.

Camden will be in Louisville, finally free to roam. Home.

We will have dropped off the rental van, exchanged

the Pilot baby seat for a toddler one (when did he grow so?),

put the leftover cans of beans in the pantry, and probably

taken a bath or three. Life's about to look a lot different.

But today I am on the Upper West Side and I am happy.

Right now, this is home. The parks and the bagels and the

"Happy Mother's Day"s from no fewer than five strangers

on the street. It's a big city, one that is still mostly a mystery,

but somehow we have carved out a life here. I will miss

Tot Lot 110 with Maresa and Lisa, will miss studying

people on the subway, will miss Wednesday Mom's Group,

but I take lessons learned from all of it with me and I remain

grateful. This sweet boy, whose eyelids finally grew too heavy,

the loyal beagle who waits excitedly at home for our return,

and the man of integrity who gave all this and more to me

are what I can't live without. They are my home.

So as I munch on my bagel and soak up Broadway

one more time, I say a silent word of thanks

to the smiling strangers, the angel of a boy who

made me a mother, and the homeless man on our

own corner, 121st and Broadway, who asked me for

"anything," and despite receiving nothing in return,

called me beautiful and wished me, yet again,

a Happy Mother's Day. I turned the corner, heading home,

and then turned around. And because it was true,

I told the man with the frayed shoes and piercing blue eyes

that he was beautiful too. I didn't have much on me,

but I gave him what I had because I. simply. have. too. much.