She gave me a word of advice that I would never forget. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” I couldn’t have known that she was preparing me for parenthood.

This year, let’s make Mother’s Day different. Let’s make it all about us, but in a very different way.

There was no way to know back then that two decades later I would be on a similar hunt, this time with a newborn baby strapped on my chest, and three boys bounding ahead.

That feeling crept over me, the awkward notion that I had caught the attention of a stranger. A feeling of watchful eyes.

It’s a question that took me over two decades to answer, “Is it worth it to take young kids on trips they won’t remember?”

As the nurse rushed in with an IV and oxygen mask explaining, “Your doctor is on her way”, I suppose that is that moment that I realized something was very wrong.