Mother’s Day weekend just passed and during this time of honoring my Mom, I’m also thankful to be a Mom.

But me being a Mom is tribute to my kids.

As most of you know, I married a widower who had two children. So, I became an instant Mother on my wedding day.

We’ve all heard the stories of step-mothers and how awful they can be. Well, I didn’t want to be part of that story. But I also needed to find the balance between respecting the memory of my step-children’s mother while finding my own way in my new family. I didn’t want to take her place, but I wanted to find my own place — somehow, there had to be room for me.

I couldn’t achieve this on my own. Oh, I definitely had a part to play, but in order to make any kind of motherhood work, it was up to the kids.

Even as a teenager and pre-teen, the kids were smart enough to know there was room for me in their hearts. They knew loving me and treating me like a mother wasn’t an insult to their mother’s memory.

My goal was to love and raise these kids as I think their mother would’ve wanted them to be loved and raised. Any Mom only wants the best for her kids. It doesn’t have to be a competition between a memory and me.

By loving them how I thought their mother would want them to be loved and cared for, I honored their Mom — I didn’t wipe away her existence.

With the kids, they just had another person in their life that loved them and had their back.

But again, none of it would’ve been possible without the kids making that choice.

We had to choose to love each other and forge our own relationships with each other.

On Mother’s Day, I honor my kids — for making the choice to open their hearts and let me in. I’m the bonus mom, and I can’t imagine loving them anymore had I been their mom from birth.

Thanks, kids, for making me a Mom.  It’s a job I love.