ONE in a Million

Image by Lab2112 via Flickr

" ...a man loves his sweetheart the best but his mother the longest."

This coming Sunday we celebrate Mother's Day. It will be bittersweet for me as I lost my own mother just a few weeks after Mother's Day last year. Fortunately my mother and I had a great relationship and I was able to spend many blessed moments with her.

Some people are not so lucky. Although it may be hard to fathom if you came from a well bonded family, some individuals recall little to celebrate about their mothers. Perhaps their mothers were indifferent or selfish, immature or absent. Life in a home where a mother was anything but nurturing could be a memory to escape from and forget.

But regardless of what type of mother you had, someone in your life has been like a mother to you. Someone has helped you to hold fast to your dreams, consoled you when you were sad, taken care of you when you were alone and believed in you when you didn't even believe in yourself. It may have been a sibling, an aunt, grandmother, colleague or even good friend. What you missed in a relationship with the woman who bore you, you may have found in another who allowed you to be someone they loved not because of but maybe in spite of the circumstances. Someone has been your ONE in a million.

Besides celebrating the one who was "mother" to you, take time to give a reverse thank you to the children you have cared for who gave you the privilege of being called "mother". Although motherhood may not seem like such a gift when you are knee deep in 3 a.m. feedings or trying to maintain a normal household with a wayward, disrespectful teenager, few mothers would choose to never have the chance at those moments. It is incredibly hard work to raise a child but the rewards of being the One in a million to another far outweigh the years of unselfishness or sacrifices made.


Your mother or another individual may have been One in a Million to you. You may be the ONE in a million to someone else. Biological or not, those who you have taken under your wing know you are irreplaceable and you know it has been an incredible adventure, regardless. 


To my own three not so little children anymore...thank you for the pleasure of being your mother.  I truly would not want to have missed any of it for the world and thank you to my mother who taught me how to be ONE in a million. It was the lesson of my life.