Growing up I had one great mother. Although I was one of eleven, I never felt that I got less of her than anyone else. She read to me, and led me to fall in love with books and stories as the way to unravel the world so it could all be taken in.  She taught me to sew and cook and clean, and would interrupt her own household work to come outside and clap for us in our backyard roller skating pageants or ooh and aww for our elaborate junk sculptures. She let me know her opinions and expected me to have some of my own. She made me feel responsible for doing my part to make the imperfect world better. I came to believe that the future depended upon strong and wise women like me.

The author, aged 5, with her mother.

I didn’t show up until she’d been in the mothering business for better than a decade. I both benefited and suffered from her, by then, extensive experience. When I was a teenager looking to bust out, I was more often than not caught skirting the truth of where I was going or what I’d been doing – when delivering a lie I always tried to offer it while she was busy over the sink or the stove – it never worked. She’d slowly turn, look me in the eye and say ever so calmly, “Sweetheart, this is not my first semester.”

My mama died when I was just twenty years old and a new mother myself. Beyond sad, it seemed a shame that she wasn’t there to help me understand my new role in this. I was certain I needed her to thrive in what would turn out to be the most challenging and most rewarding job I’d ever have. But I knew what good mothering was, and I made it a point to pick up new mothers everywhere I went throughout my life. I think of them as my million mothers.

When my three children were in diapers, it was the mothers I met at the park each day. By 10am we were already exhausted and needed mothers to figure out how to deal with a two-year-old’s new morning tantrum ritual, or a four-year-old’s insistence on never taking off his hat, or how to pry up dried Cheerios off the kitchen floor without scratching the linoleum. Petrea, Maple, and Joan were among the first.

When my youngest was two I went back to college, and my English professor John Edwards stood in. He created a space where I could continue to grow as a person, and only strengthened my love of stories. He’d quote A.A. Milne while teaching Shakespeare, and once he met my now preschool-aged children, he swept us all up whole.  He promised a surprise, and one weekend invited us to his cabin in Inverness where he’d carved paths through the forest and built monuments to our imaginations – Pooh’s house! – right under the sign that said Sanders, a Heffalump Trap, and Owl’s house, complete with Eeyore’s tail for a doorbell. We played and told stories and sang Woody Guthrie tunes in the woods. I had a place to be a child again.

Lakin with Molly

Lakin and Mary Jo were the mothers who always had a ready pot coffee and an idea that would carry us and our kids through the long hot days of summer. From building driftwood forts on the beach to getting the kids to make movies celebrating the jellyfish invasion of the Petaluma River, to staging the Wizard of Oz with ten kids under nine, adding a dragon that needed to find his flame, their creative sparks staved off exhaustion and made the days go swiftly by.

When camping, these mothers made it possible for me to sleep in long past the birds’ waking. I still long for those mornings when I’d crawl out of my tent and my own kids were already fed and playing with sticks. Mary Jo would hand me a cup of coffee and tell me to put up my feet. She’d then holler to the kids that she thought she saw a bear behind that tree that they should go find.

There were the mothers who looked out for my health, got me out of the house and walking hills at 6am, or to yoga when it was really time to make dinner. Judy and Marilyn did that and taught me that sometimes in order to be a good mother, you needed to leave the children and get a full-time job.

When the teenage years came, Juliet was the mother who provided a confidential ear and gentle advice to my trouble-enthralled girls, making sure someone knew what was really going on. And Laura took my son into her pack of boys and gave him a place to play video games, build things, and howl at the moon.

Chicken, waving from the back row, with Molly and her River Mothers

When I needed my mother again during my divorce, it was a man who showed up to fill her shoes – Chicken reminded me of all there was in me that hadn’t had time to emerge while I was mothering. Recognizing the girl who needed safety and an escort into adventures, he got me dancing, kayaking, and river rafting. He reminded me that I was precious every day and escorted me out of self-pity and into a new life.

Throughout it all I have had my big sisters—each of whom carried forward some critical mothering upon which I depended.  Katy’s medical acumen—I always call her before the doctor; Nancy’s practical approach to all problems—when I’m feeling overly emotional, Nancy can always offer something to DO that will make the problem better; Mary Jo’s patience—always ready to remind me how to focus on an ant carrying a crumb or the lovely shape of the clouds when things get tough. Ursula taught me to rely on my “crap detector”—she would never allow me to suffer fools. Tina and Marcia, whose fierceness in the face of illness inspire me to keep on fighting; and Regina, whose go-to plan is prayer.  Could one woman, even the world’s best mother, have offered me all of that?

Now I’m a grandmother, and my own daughters have the great good fortune of having a living mother. But I would never ask them to just lean on me—I would never be enough.

Everyone needs a million mothers. This year, I’m sending a card to all of mine.