What’s your name?

There’s this thing I’ve been thinking about.  Well, not so much a thing, but more of a concept.  You see, there is this word.  A simple word, really.  It’s short.  It’s common.  Only one syllable, and it’s mastered easily by those still in diapers.  Yet, it is a complex, deep, emotional, and personal word.  It’s the word that so many out there are striving so desperately to be called.  You know the one.

It’s not a secret that I spend a great deal of time with my mom, and that she’s my best bud.  She’s mom.  She’s always been mom, and she always will be.  I’ve shouted, “Hey, Mom!” in department stores.  I’ve declared, “She’s my mom!” in a drunken stupor on vacation with her.  I’ve snapped, “Mom!” when I felt she wasn’t listening.  I’ve groaned, “But Moooooommmmm!” when I didn’t get my way.  This three letter word is her name…at least to me.  Now, I sit here, wondering how this name can also apply to me.  How can we have the same name?  Follow me? 

To me, it’s her name.  How strange it has felt to walk around being called by my mother’s name for the past three months!  All of a sudden people were calling me ”Mom.” Huh?  Me?  What?  Um, I am one now, but you can call me Becky.   I wasn’t ready for the “M” word.  Those are way too big of shoes to fill.  It has taken me three months to become comfortable with being referred to as mom.  I’m wondering if that sounds strange. 

To me, it was simply a role that I needed to grow into, just like becoming a wife.  I can remember the first time I signed Mrs. Winks.  It felt strange, and I had to figure out that whole new signature deal.  Given time, it became the new normal.  Perhaps that’s how it goes with the whole motherhood deal too.  Now, just now, I’ve began to break in these new shoes.