Legacy

*This photo has been entered in 5 minutes for Mom's Mother's Day photo contest*

The events of my life in the most recent months and years have gotten me thinking a lot about legacy and what kind of legacy I will leave in this world. As we approach Mother's Day, it has been on my mind more than ever.

I took this picture myself about 10days ago at the site where I buried my first son. I wanted to capture all three of my boys in one picture. Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that all three are my legacy. The very different circumstances surrounding each one of their conception and birth and the ways in which I have had to be "Mother" to each of them - that is the legacy that I leave in this world.

I did not get to be a mother in the traditional sense to my first son and that has always left me with a big void in my heart. I sat at the cemetery last week, unsure of how best to remember my first son, with my 2yr. old playing under the trees nearby. He saw me crying and came to check on me. I could have left him with any of my friends to give me uninterrupted time to grieve and mourn. But as my son snuggled up next to me, I realized how glad I was that he was there. We had the most tender of moments - he asks why I am crying and I tell him it is because I miss his brother who is in heaven with Jesus. "I love brother Micah," he says and I start to cry even more. He rests his arm on my belly, on his baby brother, and the two of us look at the picture of Micah as I tell him about his big brother. There is a certain look on the face of a toddler, at least mine, when they are truly comprehending and soaking in what they are being told. Lucas had that look, as if he was "getting it" - beginning to understand that not only did he have a baby brother in mommy's belly but he has a brother in heaven that would have been super fun to play with. Giving Micah's life significance by sharing those memories with Lucas... that is one of the ways I am being a mother to both.

For the rest of the day, Lucas carried around with him that picture of his brother Micah. "I love brother Micah"... "I miss brother Micah too." "Me too," I would answer realizing that I was teaching my son about how to grieve. Not by sitting him down and having some intense conversation with him about his brother. But by holding his hand as we walk through all this together. During all the fearful days leading up to our ultrasound with this baby, I worried a lot about how I would help Lucas grieve the loss too if it came to that. And now I know... just like this. By letting him see me cry and telling him it is because of love and longing and that it is natural for him to feel the same.

This is what motherhood means to me. And this picture says it all. Taking the hands of the little people God has entrusted to us and teaching them how to walk through this life - both the easy and the hard. Of course, motherhood is about nurturing and protecting and all those other things too. But right now, to me, it is about holding Lucas' hand up to my belly so he can begin to meet his little brother and sitting with him as we look at pictures of his older brother so he can begin to know him too. My boys, all three of them - my legacy.