I was only six years old, but I’ll never forget the first time I understood what it meant to be an American.

It was the middle of a long, dreary winter, the kind that leaves you doubting spring might ever triumph. From the muted overcast sky to the dingy, weeks-old snow covering the ground, the world seemed strangely faded and somber.

It matched the mood of my first grade teacher as she gently tried to explain the war that was raging halfway around the world.

Operation Desert Storm was underway on the unforgiving deserts of the Middle East. Back home, the Gulf War had launched turmoil in some of our young lives, too; my hometown is just a few miles from a large Air Force base, so some of my classmates had fathers, uncles, brothers who’d been deployed to fight a bad guy named Saddam Hussein.

It was pretty heavy stuff for kids just learning to decipher phonics and arithmetic to comprehend.

We started each day reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, our small hands splayed over our hearts. The flag was mounted high on the wall in the corner of the classroom; it was small, but it sure seemed mighty.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands…”

My heart stirred beneath my hand with a kind of pride and gratitude I recognize now was patriotism. I may not have understood the why behind the fighting, but I sensed the gravity of it all. The grown-ups I knew were worried but brave. Tankers rumbled across dusty deserts on our television screens at night, their red, white, and blue flags whipping in the wind. Americans were rising to the challenge of defending liberty and justice overseas—and supporting each other with kindness and compassion back home.

No wonder that little flag on the classroom wall looked so formidable.

The flag has been in the news in recent days, at the center of a firestorm between players in the National Football League and the President of the United States. Some players have started kneeling during the National Anthem as a way of protesting perceived social and racial injustices across the country. President Donald Trump took issue with the demonstration and turned to his Twitter account to denounce their actions.

My Facebook feed has been lighting up with opinions on the topic, ranging from “How dare they not stand for the National Anthem!” to “How dare anyone question their right not to stand”

I’ll let you Google the details, but allow me to summarize: it’s all exhausting.

I wish I could hit the pause button on the national frenzy du jour and transport every last one of us to my first-grade classroom, for just a moment. We understood something then, at six years old, that I fear we’re losing sight of today, something we desperately need to reclaim: reverence and respect.

Reverence, for me, means standing for the National Anthem and placing my hand over my heart.

Reverence, for you, might mean taking a knee as the anthem plays as an act of peaceful protest.

Respect for all of us means we understand the American flag extends each one of us the freedom to do either.

“…one nation, Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Every summer when my brothers and I were growing up, our family took a vacation to Minnesota. We drove six hours to spend a week at Sunset Lodge on Potato Lake, and they were some of the best days of my childhood, filled with endless hours on the sandy beach, good friends, corn on the cob, water skiing, and plenty of late-night Yahtzee games.

But those couple of days before the five of us piled into the car and headed down Highway 2? My mom used to drive us crazy.

We had to clean our rooms. Straighten closets. Make our beds. Vacuum. Make sure not one single dish was left dirty in the sink when we finally—finally—were ready to leave that Saturday morning.

“But Mo-om,” we whined. “It doesn’t matter if our beds are made, we’re not even going to be here to see them!”

We didn’t get it, the ridiculous need to have everything in its place at home ahead of our departure. We heaved big sighs as we begrudgingly did as we’d been told, of course, but we grumbled and bickered and complained all the while.

(Have I mentioned, we didn’t get it?)

Well, now that I’m a mother myself, I finally get it.

I understand the difference in how a mother and the rest of her family views vacations. When kids think about an upcoming trip, they only see the fun that lies ahead: the swimming, the ice cream, the mini golf, the nights staying up way past their bedtimes. When moms think about that vacation, they have a giant hurdle to clear before they can begin to see the same: packing.

I’m not talking about the physical act of filling suitcases. That’s the easy part. It’s the mental maneuvering that goes along with it. What shoes do the kids need? Does everyone own a bathing suit that still fits? Who’s going to pick up the mail while we’re gone? Where did the camera charger end up? Do we have enough milk to last until we leave so I don’t have to buy another gallon that’s just going to sit in the fridge and spoil while we’re gone?

I understand now how it wears on a woman’s sanity.

I understand that, yes, Mom would have seen those unmade beds after we had left them behind. I understand how her mental cataloging of what each of us needed wore her nerves raw. I understand the pressure she felt to tie up loose domestic ends before leaving town. Mostly, I finally understand why getting ready for a vacation made my mother frazzled and a little bit frantic.

We had a framed poster hanging in our kitchen when we were growing up, one that’s now hanging in my own kitchen. It shows a mother hen, cartoon arms on her aproned hips, fuzzy yellow chicks looking up at her, the words “I’M THE MOMMY, THAT’S WHY!” in bold letters on either side. And that’s it, plain and simple. When you’re the mommy, you feel responsible for taking care of your brood in every way. Feeding them, clothing them, creating a childhood for them that’s filled with memories, happiness, wonderful vacations. So sometimes, an unmade bed or a dirty cereal bowl in the sink could have made it all too much to handle, silly as it sounded to my brothers and me at the time.

So, for all those hours of work you did while we were blissfully unaware and boorishly ungrateful; for the late nights washing and organizing and sorting; for thinking ahead; for anticipating our needs; for laying the groundwork for the happiness we took for granted—thanks, Mom.

Better late than never, right?

Dear mama bird,

It’s been a long day, huh?

Your babies were up with the sun. I heard them, outside my window, twittering like little pint-sized alarm clocks. I don’t speak your language, but I understood what they were squalling: “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!”

It’s the universal cry all mothers know, especially in the wee hours of the morning.

I peered out the window then, wondering how you would react from your perch on a nearby branch. Would you exhale and sink into your your feathers, try to conjure up a few more minutes of rest? It was Saturday morning, after all, the weekend. But no, swiftly, deftly, and with not one scolding chirp, you flitted over to the nest, shiny dragonfly in your beak, and ducked inside.

And then—oh my!—did those little ones go crazy. I can’t see them in there, you’ve so snugly tucked them away inside your birdhouse, but I can imagine the scene. Two, maybe three little beaks straining towards you, clamoring in anxious excitement, probably stepping all over each other. One of them snatched it up (the firstborn?!), causing the others to squawk their indignant fit. You deflate ever so slightly. How silly to think they’d share such a bounty.

You reappear at the window, cast a furtive glance this way and that, and dart back to the dewey grass, searching for another bit of breakfast. Success. Again, you hurry over to your babies, bug in beak, and are greeted with same reaction (and, I’d venture to guess, not even so much as a “thank you.”).

How many times do you perform this same scripted dance today? If only we could lock eyes, I think a moment of understanding would pass between us, across the species. We mothers of young children are all pretty much the same. Feathered or friend, we exist to care for our little ones. When they’re tiny and helpless, with so much yet to learn about the world and how to find their place in it, we are their constant. We comfort when they cry. We nourish when they need. We encourage. Protect. Satisfy.

Then, all too quickly, they grow. They peek their heads out of that window, realize the world is one giant adventure that awaits—and they’re off, spreading their wings and soaring on the love you’ve so freely given.

I’m sure you’ll be nearby, perched on that branch, swelling with pride that’s tinged with sadness. It’s the universal cry of a mother’s heart, dear mama, and I’m right there with you.

This post originally appeared on Bison Booties

Have you ever hung on a person’s every word?

Last night, my husband and I played table host at the Dakota Hope Clinic annual fundraiser, the biggest event for this local charity focused on supporting those in crisis pregnancies. The keynote speaker was someone you may have heard about in the news a few years ago: Abby Johnson, a former rising Planned Parenthood star director who resigned after holding the ultrasound probe during an out-of-the-ordinary ultrasound-assisted abortion procedure.

She shared the story of those few minutes that changed her life and her heart; how the moment the cannula that was about to suck the 13-week-old baby from his mother’s womb touched the baby, he jumped, and began frantically twisting and wiggling to get away from the instrument of his impending death.

She talked about watching that baby be dismembered before her eyes, while she stood silently by, assisting the doctor as he jokingly quipped, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

She detailed how that broken body ended up in a glass jar marked “POC,” or “products of conception) and was unceremoniously stored in a staff room freezer, laughingly dubbed “the nursery” by Planned Parenthood workers.

She relived for us, the moment her heart was changed, as she stared down at her hands, fully understanding for the first time how instrumental they’d been in taking thousands of lives during her young career, all under the guise of protecting women. She told us how that day, she felt the power of conversion take hold of her life, and drive her that very afternoon from that office and into the stark realization that what she was doing–what Planned Parenthood was doing–was not only unjust, it was unthinkable.

Today, Abby travels the globe sharing her story with anyone who will listen. She cuts through the lies purported by Planned Parenthood, sharing firsthand information about protocols, procedures, and profit-driven atrocities being done to vulnerable women inside clinics across the country every day. She doesn’t mince words–the abortion industry is a powerful, vicious, murderous machine.

What, then, can we do once our eyes have been opened?

We can support crisis pregnancy centers like Dakota Hope, where compassion is shown to every person who walks through their doors. Where women who find themselves in impossible situations, at the lowest points of their lives, are welcomed with open arms, treated with respect, and unconditionally supported. Where the quiet, steady work of sustaining life goes on, day in and day out.

Before last year, I didn’t know a place like Dakota Hope existed in my city. Chances are, you might not either–but they are there, persevering in their call to rescue hearts and heal the hurts of a vulnerable population crying out for help.

Please, support them. Support life. Support women. Help create a culture where abortion is, as Abby Johnson: ProWoman, ProChild, ProLife so rightly puts it, simply unthinkable. .

http://www.dakotahope.org
http://www.abbyjohnson.org