Hmm; am I a mom or not?

My sister K called last night about a Mother's Day gift my siblings were plotting. (Mom doesn't read my blog, and is getting back from Lourdes today and will be too jetlagged to read it if she were a faithful reader, so this shouldn't be a spoiler.) They're getting (something - it went by so fast, it didn't really register) that includes 5/8" plastic disks that can hold pictures. The others are all submitting pics of their kids and K wanted to know if I wanted to include one of my daughter, who died in Jan '97 at the ripe old age of 4 days. So this afternoon I swung by Kinko's w/ the 5x7 version of the hospital photo, scanned it to a CD, then e-mailed it to K.

She's the only one of my siblings who mentions Colleen to me. I suppose the others are afraid to touch on a sore subject. I also get the impression that some parents are superstitiously reluctant to raise the subject, as if talking about it could make it happen to one of their children.

K always sends me a Mother's Day card. At first that was really, really painful, but now I'm glad to know that someone remembers. A former roommate and very dear friend, and my mother-in-law also send me Mother's Day cards. The first time TW's mom sent me one, I was surprised, but we share a bond in that her 2nd daughter died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of 21. She's asked me about Colleen once or twice, and spoken of Barbara on occasion; I think she appreciates having someone who knows what it's like to bury a child.

Since I don't have any surviving children, I feel almost like a "stealth mom"; are you still a mom if you never got to raise a child? One friend, a single mother of six (and going to school while working full time - I don't know how she does it!), commented recently that "none of your children live with you". As the oldest of 5, I've always had a mile-wide mother hen streak. In college my roommates and I mothered each other, then I mothered my husbands, doing domestic things for them, friends have seen that mother hen in me come out, and now the folks I do shows with reap the benefits - I'm forever tweaking their costumes, working on sets, etc. Some of it even leaks out at work, though I do try to maintain a professional demeanor. ;)

Having had 20 years to get used to my situation, I'm usually OK with it, but sometimes when I see families together, I get really wistful, and holding baby girls is guaranteed to get me all teary-eyed.