KAREN WIGHT -- No Place Like Home

Seasonal articles are important, or so my editor reminded me when I let

Easter come and go without a nod.

These things do sneak up on me. I turn in my columns several days in

advance, and the truth is, occasionally I fly by the seat of my pants in

this juggling act that I call my life.

And this year the kids were out on Spring Break the week before Easter,

so I barely had time to think about my own Easter preparations, much less

write about them.

So here we are. Mother’s Day is tomorrow. It may be last-minute, but I am

giving everyone fair warning that you have 24 hours to get your act

together to pour on the love for Mom.

This celebration does not have to be elaborate. In fact, the best gifts

are the ones that come from the heart, not from the store. (OK, OK, I do

like little blue boxes).

Time to get a little sentimental about the person who smiles at our past,

revels in our present and hopes for our future.

One of my favorite Mother’s Day gifts was a photo of three feet that my

husband and kids gave me on the Mother’s Day shortly after my son, our

second child, was born.

My husband’s family has weird feet. Every time I have been pregnant, we

jokingly say we hope the kids don’t get his feet. His feet have a long

second toe, a sideways fourth toe and a little toe that hooks out and

then back to join the rest of the toes. I have noticed that almost all of

Ben’s brothers and sisters (there are seven) have these weird, hooky

toes.

Ben’s mother is the queen of the hooky toes. And I feel certain this is a

dominant gene because we have three children with three sets of weird,

hooky toes.

Ben is a good-looking man, but not the toes. I, on the other hand, have

my share of physical quirks, but my toes are nice. Normal. Graduating

down from the big toe to the small one, in descending order, the way toes

are supposed to be. I eagerly wait for spring so I can put on my sandals,

polish my nails and parade my symmetrically descending toe order to the

world. Not a trace of this symmetry is found on my children’s’ feet.

So, back to the photo. Shortly after Breck was born, Ben took a picture

of his left foot, Annie’s left foot and Breck’s left foot, all lined up

together. It was the same foot, only in sizes small, medium and large.

I still smile every time I look at it. Ben’s forte is usually not in the

gift-giving department, but the thought and effort put into the foot

photo was exemplary.

Eleven Mother’s Days have come and gone since the foot photo, and it’s

still my favorite gift. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE all of the handmade

and heartfelt gifts that the kids have given me. The presents made with

loving hands and full hearts are the ones that I will cherish for the

rest of my life. We have added a few to the Christmas tree, a couple in

the master bathroom, and one has a place of prominence in the powder

room.

All these gifts are irreplaceable. Each time I look at one, I can

remember the teacher or scout leader, the feel of that time in our lives,

for better or worse. The anticipation on the kids’ faces when I open

them. These are the things I hope I reflect on when I am older and

actually have time to reflect.

I hope I’ll forget about the way the children usually get into a big

fight on Mother’s Day, how the breakfast does not please everyone’s

tastes and the subtle competition between the kids on whose gift is best.

I hope I can sit back and remember the unconditional love, the perfect

smiles before they lost all of their teeth, their desire to please (since

that does not happen very often) and the way they looked up to me as the

person to make the good things better, the bad things good and the

unbearable things bearable.

I hope I have given them gifts as well -- things only a mother can give.

At times, we know our children better than they know themselves.

Hopefully, they can hear our words even through the quest for

independence. Hopefully, they will know that we have done the best job

that we know how to do.

It may not be perfect, but we try. We all make mistakes and mothers are

no exception. But at the heart of it all is a love so strong, so visceral

that at times it almost scares me. At times, I find myself acting out of

an instinct so basic and fundamental to the continuation of our species

that I wonder, how far have we really come?

Or maybe this mother’s love is a gift so precious that it defies

understanding and explanation. The most perfect love we can find on this

earth.

So, to my mother (the one with the good toes), happy Mother’s Day; to

Ben’s mother (with the hooky toes), sorry; and to my family, thank you

for giving me a life that just gets better every day. Happy Mother’s Day.

* KAREN WIGHT is a Newport Beach resident. Her column runs Saturdays.