What I like to see

My son, my daughter, my granddaughter—after dinner, on my deck. Andy reads to his niece. Emily watches and listens. I carry dishes inside. I'm lucky to have them so close to me. I know that, and when I feel that I feel a twinge of guilt about what my parents missed by our having moved hundreds of miles from them. But I think of what my mother said. "No matter how far away you go, I am with you in my heart and mind." And she was.

My children are adults with their own complicated lives. I feel no less a mother, however. The job has changed. Really, it's not so much a job as a state of mind. I think of all I have learned by being a mother, mostly about the nature of love and just how wide and deep it can be. I think I'm a better person for having had children—a different person than I would have been, for certain.

Happy Mothers' Day to everyone who is or has or had a mother.