A special place for the mothers’ ties that bind

And I remember you told me if we run out of time

How happy you were just to know she’ll be mine

And when I wrap her up warm you’ll be right next to me

‘Cause they say the red thread that ties me to you ties her to me.

– Lucy Kaplansky, “The Red Thread,” on the album of the same name

They buried one of the world’s great moms the other day, the boss hen of a brood that included nine children, almost 40 grandchildren and more than 60 great-grandchildren. She was the kind of mother who, if she had ruled the world, its presidents would have gone without supper each night until all of their country’s children were fed. As I stood with her family in the rain to say goodbye, I knew that when they gather this November for Thanksgiving she will be there as always, sitting at the table that love set while they fill themselves with the spicy memories of her days in their lives.

Her passing reminded me of the privileged place I hold in the world of many women, witnessing as I do the moments of great transition in their lives as mothers. I have seen them at the moment they found out they were to be mothers, and when they first heard the heartbeat of a life’s love. I have been there when they first held and beheld their child in their arms, umbilical cord still attached on both ends. I’ve seen some mothers struggle to let their children leave the nest, and others gently boot a reluctant young one out over the edge. I have seen mothers say goodbye forever to a dying child, and seen children say goodbye forever to their dying mothers.

On each occasion I am reminded of the mysterious, wonderful force that binds most mothers to their children, and their children back to them, and on each occasion I wonder what that force is. It’s more than love; if it were simply love it could fade as other loves can. It is not just caring, for then the caring of a substitute would leave nothing missing. The force has something to do with all of those things and a mother’s elemental commitment to a child’s well-being, a commitment so profound that a child can feel it as a force of nature. It’s so strong a child can build a life on its foundation.

I saw it in the emergency department recently, in the eyes of a mother in her 40s dying that night from metastatic cancer. She knew it was her time, and had prepared for it, but asked for enough hours to see her children once more. So we pulled out all the stops; hung the fluids, pushed powerful medicines in and life’s curtain back, buying priceless time for them to travel to her side once more. It was the third best Mother’s Day gift I ever got to give, my children being the first two.

I saw that mother’s children with her the next day, holding her hands. They were young adults who looked like children who knew they would soon be lost in the world without their mother. The years fell off them as the years always do when children are in the presence of their mothers. As my mother ages, I have begun to sense that feeling of being alone. It comes uniquely from being out there on your own with parents who can be called upon for guidance and comfort only in your thoughts and prayers. And I am a big boy now.

If you mixed up motherhood in a bowl I think it would be six parts love, four parts fierce possessiveness, and several pinches of “eternally springing hope” cut with hair-pulling exasperation. The brew would be spiced with a pinch of well-intended meddling, and one cup of iron will. There are secret ingredients too, I am sure, ingredients a man cannot be told of; estrogen, perhaps, the softness of a loving touch, and that smile women share as though only they really know life’s best secret, but who knows? It is another of Mom’s secret recipes.

As I watch my wife sit on the kitchen floor and chatter happily away with her daughters about things that seem inconsequential, I get a hint that one secret ingredient may be a mother’s intense interest in her children, in their lives and in their happiness. My wife takes pleasure in the small details of their days and experiences because these are the lives of her children and every detail shared is therefore of importance. I think my daughters feel that interest, and they know that if there is anyone they can call any time who will care about whatever it is they are caring about at that moment, it is their mom.

The recipe for great mothering does not have to be taught by mother to daughter. I know women who grew up without their mothers, but their children can feel the thread that binds them to their mothers as though the thread had been sewn unbroken into their lives from the women of their family going back a thousand years.

The recipe is not just given to women who bear the children they love, either. I have seen great mothering by women who mother children born by others, as adoptive mothers or mothering aunts, and as grandmothers who fill in as loving surrogate mothers for their daughters. They would all walk through flames for the children they love, and on the other side are children who walk confidently through the world because they know that these moms are their dedicated firefighter for life.

I may never figure out what it is that ties us to our mothers and makes their enfolding arms one of the world’s very best places, but I celebrated it on Mother’s Day, and I give thanks that I see it and feel it every day.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.