Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Mothers: A Collection in Words and Photographs

By Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Sharon Wohlmuth captures the essence of motherhood through stunning black-and-white images, creating a mesmerizing book. She brings to life the heartwarming goodness of a very select group of stories through photos of poignant moments that will leave readers moved to both laughter and tears.

A mother's face is a reflection of the world around her. When her children are hurt, she grimaces in pain. When they are happy, her eyes light up with joy. When they are sad, her cheeks glisten with tears. When they need encouragement, she brims with fierce determination to help them succeed. Hers is the first face we see as we enter the world and the one that stays with us long after she is gone.

This celebration of the many faces of motherhood makes the perfect holiday gift and, much as Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul, is destined to become a classic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul
• Release date: Oct 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453279588

Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is the cocreator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor with Gay Hendricks of You've GOT to Read This Book! An internationally renowned corporate trainer, Jack has trained and certified over 4,100 people to teach the Success Principles in 115 countries. He is also a podcast host, keynote speaker, and popular radio and TV talk show guest. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Book preview

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL®

CELEBRATES MOTHERS

CHICKEN SOUP

FOR THE SOUL®

CELEBRATES MOTHERS

A Collection in Words and Photographs by

Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen

and

Sharon J. Wohlmuth

Backlist, LLC, a unit of

Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC

Cos Cob, CT

www.chickensoup.com

CONTENTS

The Day It All Came Together Ilsa J. Bick

I Love You More Christie A. Hansen

The Cap Molly Lemmons

The Competition Lori A. Bottoms

My Children Donna J. Calabro

Happy Returns Jane Robertson

First Kiss Laurie A. Sontag

Maple Leaf Wars Nathalie K. Taghaboni

A Mother’s Love Mary K. Schram

Wishing Away Lana Brookman

The Things You Never Did Lisa Inquagiato Benwitz

I Can’t Remember Barbara Nicks

Three Squeezes Carol Tokar Pavliska

Hands of Time Carol Ann Erhardt

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THE DAY IT ALL CAME TOGETHER

March can be cold in Texas. I hadn’t expected that. A transplanted Yankee, by way of a slight if forgivable detour through Virginia, I viewed Texas with the same avidity I did a pit viper. In my imagination, Texas was a land of endless deserts. Rattlesnakes curled up on the porch, and armadillos wandered the streets. My move to San Antonio, courtesy of the Air Force to which I owed my time if not my soul, might as well have been a one-way shot to the moon.

It was in that alien landscape of cacti, fire ants, scorpions, armadillos, rattlesnakes, and a purposeful, somewhat lunatic roadrunner that traversed our cul-de-sac every afternoon at three without fail, that I became pregnant with our first child. We hadn’t exactly been trying, but we hadn’t exactly been careful either. We had sidled up to parenthood gradually, practicing first on three cats and a golden retriever. The baby was conceived during a playoff game between the Washington Redskins and the Chicago Bears, somewhere in the third quarter, around the twentieth yard line of the Bears. The Redskins went on to win the Super Bowl that year, a prelude of things to come, and after our initial astonished exchange (Are you sure?Of course, I’m sure. Look, the stick is blue!), we accepted that the pregnancy just was, like morning coffee or taxes.

But I was not excited. I was a professional. I had a career. Ergo, pregnancy was a temporary way station on the road to something called motherhood, a hazy concept blurred at the margins by images of June and Ward, and Archie and Edith. After a wretched first trimester, when one sympathetic obstetrician observed that if men had to endure the raging hormonal imbalances pregnant women did, they would end up gasping on the floor like beached fish, I had adopted a somewhat detached attitude. There was nothing I could do about the alien invader whose presence reshaped my body before my eyes. She—for I knew it was a she by the sixteenth week—was a nameless entity that squiggled and kicked and rolled and had a knack for getting up when I most wanted to sleep.

Predictably, my parents were thrilled. My in-laws gushed. I received countless, indulgent