I watched the movie “Juno” last night for the first time.

I pin-droppingly focused on the final moments when an eager adoptive mother meets her baby for the very first time, big, wet teardrops falling off my cheekbones faster than I could wipe them.

These are the moments in which we are reminded there is nothing—absolutely nothing—stronger than the emotion a woman feels holding her baby that first time.

It is transformative.

It is the beginning of two new lives—the baby’s, of course, and the mother’s as she begins her life-long free fall into self-doubt and fear and the grasping and gripping and overwhelming desire to guard something she is well aware will soon be out of her control.

A mother’s love is solid and endless and all-encompassing. It is an extension of a raw and beating heart that goes unnoticed and taken for granted until the very instant she gives birth. And in that moment, the mother’s heart stops beating for her and begins to hammer for another life with a clench so strong the mother doesn’t know if she’ll survive the moment.

She does survive—and continues to do so through thick and thin–and her heart grows. The scaleable love of a mother is a mystery of science, diagramed only in cartoon form as we watch the Grinch’s heart grow three times as big each Christmas.

My own journey from birth to adulthood is kodachromed in sepia tones on the various walls of my parent’s home. There you will find the defining pictures of my toddler hood as I held steadfast to the safety of my mother’s leg, the unfortunately recorded independent teenage years with shocking haircuts and questionable clothing, the documented light speed transition into womanhood marked by a white dress and new person by my side.

Over the years, I gave my mother many chances to waiver–infamously more than my siblings ever did—with adolescent misery and baiting arguments and waters tested time and again. Like most mother-daughter relationships, ours was filled with milestone ups and discontented downs.

But here’s the thing: Never once did I doubt that her heart was beating for me. Not once.

Unwittingly, my mother taught me how to be mad and disappointed and worried and scared and yet show, no matter what, that her heart still gripped and grasped to protect me. She taught me what it looks like to have someone love you more with each passing day. She taught me what it feels like to be truly loved.

With my own children, I have felt bliss and joy, anger and heartache. And through it all, my heart has never—not once–stopped beating for them.

On this Mother’s Day, I do not wish for flowers or breakfast in bed or a large bottle of proudly presented cheap perfume. I don’t need my husband to pamper me for the day or write me thankful love notes.

My simple, yet terrifyingly immense, wish is that my children will have a secure refuge marked and protected by the unquestionable and indubitable love of their mother.

Thank you, Mom, for sharing this gift.

Thank you for giving me the chance to pass it on.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Published in The Broomfield Enterprise, 5/5/08