When foster mom and blogger Jamie recently welcomed a foster child into her home, she began to truly understand the real meaning of the word "mommy." In a blog post that has been turned into a viral Facebook post on Love What Matters' page, Jamie shared a story about the 2-year-old she had welcomed for a temporary stay.
After she greeted the girl, who had been in foster care for five months in her two years of life, the other children in Jamie's home filled in as a welcoming committee.
"She wanders around with the other kids for approximately 11 minutes before she runs into the room with a smile and says, 'Look, mommy!' to me," she wrote. "The woman she met 11 minutes before."
It was then, Jamie told Scary Mommy, that her heart sank.
"It wasn’t just that she used the word mommy, it was that she ran up to me excited, with a huge smile, like I was her mommy," she told Scary Mommy. "I felt so sad for her that she could so easily fall into accepting the idea that I was the new ‘mommy.’"
"To this little girl, 'mommy' meant the female adult of the house, the lady who reached something you couldn't and refilled your juice," she wrote in her blog post. "Having five 'mommies' in five months, she hadn’t yet had the chance to learn what mommy meant."
But as Jamie wrote, being "mommy" is more than being the female adult in the house.
"Mommy meant falling asleep on shoulders, kissing skinned knees, teaching ABCs," she wrote. "Mommy meant helping homework, whispering about friends, sitting outside dressing rooms. Mommy meant taking pictures at graduation, hugging on wedding day, cuddling grandchildren. Mommy meant security. Mommy meant commitment. Mommy meant life-long love."
While motherhood means different things to different people, the post resonated with Facebook users who loved her points on what the word "mommy" can really mean.
"I love love LOVE the way you described the smallest but most important pieces of being a mom," one user commented on the Facebook post. "I've always said any woman could have a child but being a mom is so much more. Thank you so much for your story."