An interesting example was during this past football season when a prominent college quarterback blew a big game with a big mistake. In his despondency, he called his mom, who had attended the game and was now on a plane flying home across the country. She departed at the next terminal and flew back to be with him while he worked through the situation.

In contrast, fathers are more likely to want to do something with us, to be in action and get something done. If Dad was there with his son, he’d have said, “Let’s go play some golf and get your mind off of it.”

This is not to put dads down. Parents are just different. Moms and dads have their unique virtues, and that is why it is so valuable to have one of each.

Poignant examples

When you are sick, you don’t want anyone with you other than your mom to tend to your needs, give you medicine and wait with you until you are well. If you have the misfortune to require a hospital stay, not to worry — mom will be there with you until you have received all the necessary diagnoses and treatments.

My brother had Down syndrome, and when he was 43, he had to stay in the hospital. Our 85-year-old mother would not think of letting him be there alone, even though he kind of enjoyed the hospital because he got to stay in bed all day! Mom was nearly blind with macular degeneration, and she tripped on his bed one night and fell. She ended up in the hospital herself, but she was a mom. She had to be with her son, to wait with him.

Another example is my patient wife, who sat in the hospital for weeks on repeated occasions with our young son, who had been diagnosed with cancer. I had to travel home 300 miles away, back to work, even build a house that was under construction at the time. While all that was true and necessary, the underlying truth was that I could not sit there all that time. I would likely be found to say, “Hang on, don’t go anywhere, I’ll be back in a little bit.” Then off I’d go to allegedly check on the other kids, run errands or take a break.

I know another lady whose teenage son suddenly became an invalid. She has been at his side for 30 years and counting. That is not all she has done, because she had other duties with her husband and seven other children. Nonetheless, a major part of her day and evening is resigned to sitting and being with her adult son, now age 50. She prays, reads and chooses happiness, while awaiting God’s will.

The foundation

Perhaps mothers learn this capacity for being and waiting with their children from the nine months of waiting during pregnancy. Any mother knows that it gets to be a long wait, especially in the final months and days. Maybe God planned it this way, so as to prepare mothers for the many “waits” they will have in their lifetimes. One of the sad things about abortion is that the expectant mother is not willing or able to “wait.” She wants it over with, out of sight out of existence; and in the process forfeits this wonderful dimension of her motherly being.

The ultimate waiting 

The hardest wait for a mom is with a dying child — torn between not wanting it to happen, yet realizing that it is inevitable. She wants to be with her child, and yet she wants it to be finished. She wants to keep the child God gave her, yet is accepting in giving the child back to the Almighty. And all the while she waits, just being with her child, often in her arms. My wife experienced this pain when our son, Brian, died from cancer at age 2.

But neither she nor any mothers are alone in this suffering and without a model. Who was at the foot of the cross of the dying Jesus? Mary, his mother. She would not let her son go to his death alone. She would walk with him along the Via Dolorosa, would be with him to the end, suffering with him and “waiting” to cradle him in her arms, as he was taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb. Ultimately, she waited to be reunited with him in heaven. We pray all mothers will be reunited with their lost children, again holding their babies in their arms in the beauty of eternity with Christ Jesus.