There is a scene at the end of the movie Terms of Endearment where Debra Winger is saying goodbye to her children in her hospital room. My mom and I used to have differing opinions over which part made us cry harder. For me, especially as a teenager, it was always Teddy with his broken face and the obvious heartbreak happening to him right in front of my eyes. For her though, it was Tommy, the older son, the one who was struggling to hold it all together and remain his defiant preteen self. He was trying not to cry and to show that he was just fine. It was what Debra Winger said to him that broke my mother’s heart. She told him that she wanted him to know, to really know in his heart, that she knew he loved her. She did not want him to be left with the guilt that so often settles into those left behind when they know they didn’t say it enough or show it enough, especially to their mothers. So she made sure, as mothers so often do, to be selfless in that moment, to comfort him, even if he did not think he needed her comfort. Because she knew he did and would.

Now that I am a mother and now that I have lost a mother, I see why that part mattered to her so much more. It is the less obvious parts of mothering that matter the most in the end. And I think it strikes at the very core of our fear in mothering that we wonder to ourselves, in our darkest moments…if I die tomorrow, will my children know how very I loved them and how much I know they loved me?

Having celebrated another Mother’s Day, I really feel that way. Did my own mother know that I really did love her, despite all the ways that she attempted to make herself unlovable to me? Does she somehow know, somewhere that she is in fact missed, probably far more than she would have ever imagined possible when she was alive?

More than that, though, I wonder if my own girls know how very much I love them, especially when I think of the moments where I lose my patience. Because I remember those moments with my own mother, and I certainly didn’t feel like she loved me very much at those times. I just remember thinking that she was crazy. Sadly, honestly, that is probably what my children think, too. And they are right, because in those moments I am crazy, and I suppose I can take a small measure of comfort in knowing that I am not alone in feeling that way. Thank God for the women around me who tell me that they feel the same way or do the same things or that their children look at them with the same eyes of bewilderment and fear and sadness.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all bad. I am not here to do some sort of public flogging of myself or to ask for kudos for a job well done. As always, I just want to share the truth of how I am feeling and hope that someone reading says to themselves, “Girl, I hear you, and I feel the same way.”

These very same little people, who I scold, who I sometimes hurt with my tone, my sharpness, my quickness to react, still look at me with love in their eyes as they call me Mommy. They still give me cards saying I am a rock star and thank me for being theirs. Which is funny to me in a way, because I feel like the thanking should be the other way around. I should thank them for being mine.