"All Over"

By Laura Breksa, Personal Pursuits CouncilMom

"All over" was a vague term in my pre-mother days, often used as hyperbole. As a mother, "all over" was literal.

I saw our two children running all over the backyard frantically, calling out to each other and both acting as if they were looking for something. I asked them what they were doing, and they replied they were playing "Get Ready for Church."

Shock and laughter are great teachers, but I could have been a better student. Two moves and two children later, I found myself running all over the house on an actual Sunday morning, frantically calling out to my kids to get ready to leave for church. They should have had their church shoes on and  standing at the front door, but were running shoeless all over the house.

There was a shock but no laughter when I saw the cereal all over the table. I had 3 minutes before we had to drive away from our home and about 30 minutes of work to do before I could even get out the door. My husband was away on military orders. Though divided, I would not be conquered.

I had to act quickly. I swept the kitchen table with a broom. Admittedly not my finest homemaking moment. I corralled the kids to the door. Put the correct feet in the right shoes and on the right feet and got to church. And like any other Sunday service, my second youngest was all over the pew, and the youngest crawled all over me.

Now those types of Sundays are all over. The four children are grown. I still live in that house. And where there were shoes, cereal, and kids all over the place, there are now only echoes of their voices and empty spaces. Many other memories, snapshots, snippets, stories, and sagas exist. And motherhood, thankfully, is to be honored even when they are grown; it's never all over.

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