I (heart) Mom

Tonight I was reminded of a situation that I was witness to a few years ago while I was in nursing school when I went and saw a friend of mine that was sick. I took her some chicken noodle soup to try to help her feel better. It's just what you do when people are sick...take them soup. Nothing has ever made me feel better faster than to have some homemade soup from my mom. I don't ever really get that soup anymore. Not now that I'm grown and married. But my husband doesn't make homemade soup...not the therapeutic kind that is meant for helping a person get well and back up on their feet.
But the point of this wasn't to discuss the power of homemade chicken noodle soup...despite the fact that Jewish women swear by it! Instead, this is about the nurturing, loving, healing powers of Mom. Not just my mom, but many, many moms. Tonight when I saw my friend, her mom was there at her house to help her out. Not to just help her with her child, as my friend is a single mom. But her mom was there to offer loving support that only moms and dear, dear people (usually women) can offer.
My friend commented that her boyfriend, although great, couldn't take the place of her mom. Her mom said that the boyfriend was really great and tried to really help out by cooking for my friend. His efforts, although appreciated, still did not measure up to my friend's mom's comfort. My friend added that she just needed her MOM.
So after this exchange between mother and daughter, I was reminded of when I was working on an oncology floor as a nurse extern in Macon. There was a lady in her 80's that was dying of cancer. When she came into the hospital she was talking and interacting. The cancer she had consumed her entire being quickly and she became virtually unresponsive to us.
As the patient layed there in bed, obviously not long from death, she began to call out softly. I thought perhaps she would call out for her husband. They had been married for 50-60 years. He was sitting at the foot of her bed. I thought that she would want the comfort of him holding her hand. But no. She called out to her mother, the same mother who had probably died 20 years prior to the patient's hospitalization. Over and over she called out to her mom and reached out her hand. Perhaps her mother was there with her to comfort her and we just couldn't see her.
From that time on, I began to appreciate the fact that no matter how old we get, we always want our mom. We want our comforter. We want the person that stays up all night and swabs our heads with cool washclothes when we have a fever. We want that person that kisses our boo-boos and tells us that it will be OK. We want that person that faithfully rocked us to sleep or soothed us when we were afraid of lightening.
Is there any wonder that one of the most popular tattoos of all time is the "I (heart) MOM" piece?
I feel certain that there are people out there that say that their mom was the first cousin to the devil. I know there are just some really bad parents in this world that deserve to be disowned. But I think that even deep down in the heart of that child (adult children too), there is still a deep desire to have whatever scraps of maternal love that is available from the one who gave birth to them or raised them. Its approval or acceptance I'm sure. And some times these moms fall way short. But, no matter what, if the situation was more ideal, that child would want to be with their mom.
So whether we are 2 or 87, when we hurt, when we cry, when we ache from within....we will call out to her...to mom...so she can kiss away our fears and wipe our tears away. We will hold out our hands so that we can be touched by her and comforted...even if she passed decades before and only our loving memory of her remains.