I attended a wedding this past weekend where my youngest son Nolan was the best man. The groom’s mother, Joann and I are also very close friends—we met when their family moved to a farm near ours in Upstate New York and bonded quickly. But it was our sons, just infants at the time, who had a connection that truly defied explanation. Even before they could speak, they seemed to understand each other completely. As they grew older, they would often say, “We share a brain.” And it wasn’t just a cute phrase—they’d prove it time and again with eerie, inexplicable moments that always amazed and shocked us.
When they started toddling, they’d climb up on the fireplace hearth, hold hands, and chant something only they understood—what we came to interpret as “1, 2, 3, GO!” Then they’d leap.
I arrived early at the church that day, full of happiness and excitement. It was a beautiful spring afternoon in the mountains of North Carolina. I was standing in the parking lot when Brendan’s mother came out of the church. She was smiling—until she saw me. Then we both broke down. We ran to each other, crying, and just held each other, sobbing. (I’m in tears again now as I write this.) While our boys may share a brain, these mothers share a heart.
Throughout the ceremony, she kept turning to look at me as if no one else was in the church except us and our boys. Tears streamed down our faces. We looked at our tall, grown sons—over six feet now—standing side by side on the altar steps, but in our hearts, we still saw those little boys, side by side on that fireplace hearth.
How is it that a mother’s heart can be so full of pride, joy, and love—yet shatter into a million pieces of grief and sadness at the same time?
As I reflect on this Mother’s Day, I think about how tender, fragile, tough, strong, and resilient our hearts must be as mothers.
When those babies are placed in our arms at birth, something unexplainable happens to our hearts. We think we know love, have felt love, and seen love—but this love is unlike anything else on this side of Heaven.
As our children grow—from toddlers jumping off a hearth, to adults standing at an altar, and eventually to parents themselves—a mother’s heart expands and breaks, again and again. Sometimes it feels like there’s no way one heart can hold this much emotion in a lifetime.
Today, my Mother’s Heart aches for a client-friend who lost a son in a tragic accident, and for another who lost her daughter to cancer. I cry with them. I carry their sorrow.
But I also received photos this weekend—while dancing at the wedding—from other client-friends celebrating the birth of a new granddaughter. I cry tears of joy with them, too. My heart rejoices with theirs.
There is no heart like a mother’s heart. God knew what He was doing when He created mothers to be the literal heart of the family. We love harder, feel deeper, mourn greater, and embrace tighter.
If you’re a mother, I hope that you had the Happiest Mother’s Day.
If you’ve lost your mother, I hope Mother’s Day brings memories that make you smile.
And if your mother is still with you, please take a moment to call her and let her know how much you appreciate her Mother’s Heart.
Katie ~~
Proverbs 31:25-28 (NIV)
“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue... Her children arise and call her blessed;