First Mother’s Day

Last year on Mother’s Day, I was pregnant but I did not yet know. When I was buying supplies for my family’s party at Trader Joe’s, the cashier pointedly and earnestly wished me a happy Mother’s Day. She was a middle-aged black woman, so if it had been a movie on the Hallmark channel, she probably would have been a divine messenger giving a message to a woman bravely struggling with infertility. But, really, I think it was because I was wearing a black A-line Juicy Couture tunic that I had gotten for a really good price at Marshall’s and I was wearing because I was feeling a little bloaty. I was kind of amused because I was trying to get pregnant — had been trying for about seven months — but I also didn’t want to look pregnant when I wasn’t. So when I got home, I changed out of the tunic and into a more figure-hugging top.

This year on Mother’s Day, I had with me my sixteen-week-old baby boy, and I had a lovely day with my family. I have heard people repeat that platitude “You don’t know what true love is until you have children,” and even though I love Mateo like I’ve loved nobody else ever, I don’t think that it’s true. What I think is that if you don’t have children, you don’t experience the particular kind of love that parents have for their children, but there are so many kinds of ways people love each other, each true love in its own right. There are kinds of love that I will not experience. But I am happy to experience this particular kind.