I’m 27 now. We have a wedding to attend every month it seems. Then some of my friends are a few years ahead of me and have birthed some babies. I say that very nonchalantly, but there is nothing nonchalant about becoming a mother.
I have watched their faces change as their worlds change. Bringing a life into being must be an indescribable feeling. Most new moms I know don’t need to put it into words. They’re exhausted-yet-serene smile says all that can be said. They’re in love, despite sleep deprivation they would have never had incentive to overcome before baby.
I am excited to someday know what that feels like, but right now, observing it is a joy for me. It makes me think very often about my own mama. I am extremely biased, but I’m not sure I’ve ever known a mom who loved being a mom as much as my mom.
I never felt like an inconvenience in her life. She had her times where she would get a little ticked about her childrens’ self-serving nature and let the kitchen cabinets slam a little harder than usual some mornings. But we kids were always our mom’s best friends and she was ours. This friendship was lopsided. She gave and gave and gave and I took, and took, and took. Her joy was in giving. She gave me life and the gifting has not stopped since.
She used to ask me: Annie, do you have any idea how fortunate you are to have been born in this country?
I was too young to know at the time what a different situation I could have come to life in….I still take our great country for granted. But one thing I do not take for granted is being born into this world with Barb and Tom Chandler as parents.
My brother Luke is disgustingly gifted (that’s a high compliment) musically. He wrote my mom a song for her birthday, and my mom played the recording of him singing to the tune of his guitar melody when I was in San Antonio recently.
Talk about a storm of emotions. A voice we love using his gift to sing about his favorite memories of mom, and about her sacrificial love for her kids. I had a gigantic lump in my throat as I listened and somehow fought the overwhelming urge to cry (It’s that Swedish stoicism mom handed down).
One scene my brother set with his lyrics was a typical cleaning day in our suburban house:
The smell of Pine-Sol in the air, the furniture from the hardwood moved into the center of the living room, and mom helping us make a pretend world out of the relocated furniture. We would turn bar stools upside down and climb inside (I was once that size) the cylinder of their base and pretend we were on a train or in a rocket ship readying for launch. Mom would narrate and react to the happenings of the civilization which had recently been founded in our living room. Oh, and it smelled like Pine-Sol because she was mopping the floors like a mad woman as her children obliviously journeyed cross-living room in their chair-car choo choo train.
Mothering. The ultimate test of selflessness. Mom taught me to say thank you, but I’m sure I’ve missed opportunities to thank her at least 100,000 times in life so far.
My mom taught an after school art class with her business partner called Art Smart. I took their classes for at least seven years. I attempted to follow along as a 4-year-old, but I’m not sure I understood the gist of their lessons on Cubism or Pointillism or why Van Gogh had a blue period. But mom would look at my work and be amazed. Yes, she is the giver of perhaps the most enthusiastic reactions in the history of reactions…
“Oh my goodness, Annie! It’s just GORGEOUS!!!!”
She would say with a face of utter astonishment, hand on chest, since I’d just taken her breath away with my kid art. Her praise kept me going. It’s always kept me going. I became obsessed with various subjects and mom treated me like a famous artist and named my phases.
“Oh yes, that was during your Alamo phase.”
I was a decent artist, but always competitive. If I didn’t like the way something turned out, mama was always able to see the beauty in it. And so life goes.
Mom has always been able to befriend those people who are not the easiest to like. She loves everyone instantly. That’s not to say she has low standards, it’s to say she views every person as a divine work of art. There is beauty in every single one of God’s creations. Sometimes it’s buried, but my mom instantly excavates and finds it.
You do not have to do much digging to find the beauty in my mom. Her love is patient, kind, humble, and real.
My brother put it perfectly in the chorus of the song he wrote for Mom:
You’ll never know what a difference it’s made to be loved by you every single day.
You thought nothing of giving yourself, to the family you hold together so well.
Thank you 100,000 times, mama, for enveloping your family in such a cozy blanket of love.
Happy Mother’s Day to my mama and all you moms who give all of yourselves everyday!
