A Mother’s Love When I was a toddler just starting out in the world, my mother scolded me for touching all the cookies before choosing one, She shouted my name loudly when I strayed from her side, and she pointed her finger at me when I pulled the dog’s tail. But she picked me up and kissed my injured knee when I had fallen off my tricycle. When I was a child in my first years of school, my mother continually nagged for me to brush my teeth. She threatened to throw my dolls away if I didn’t put them where they belonged, and she gave me a look that could kill when I didn’t share with others. But, after I came home from school crying because the other kids had been mean, she embraced me in her arms. When I was an adolescent in my last years of elementary school, my mother yelled at me to stop watching TV and start getting my homework done. She sternly shook her head “No” when I asked to stay at a friend’s house on a school night, and she turned away when I begged for my own phone line. But, when I got a bad grade on a test she said, “Grades aren’t everything,” and was proud of me anyway. When I was a teenager preparing for the future, my mother screamed at me when I wouldn’t clean my room, She grounded me when I came home late, and she forbid me from using the car when I didn’t call one night. But, after days of waiting for a guy to call, she left a note on the bathroom mirror that said, “I’m sorry, there are other fish in the sea.  I love you.  Love, Mom.” And for the first time in days, my heart felt at ease. When I was a mother, beginning a family of my own, I became upset at my children for leaving messes, I ignored them when they said things they really didn’t mean, and I didn’t always give them everything they wanted. But I was always there to kiss away the pain, embrace their injured souls, and proudly say, “I love you,” when they didn’t always deserve it, but when they needed it the most… Just as my mother had done for me.