If you’re a mom (or know one), you know that being a mother is wonderful, demanding, scary, and stressful all at once.
A mom’s life is full of challenges and often messy with sticky hands, spilled milk, stains, and endless laundry.
Just when you think you’re done, there’s always more laundry or a new stain to clean.
We often laugh off these moments, but it can still be very frustrating.
It’s normal to feel like we’re running out of patience sometimes.
Heather Duckworth is a mom who understands this very well. She has an important message for mothers everywhere, one that everyone needs to hear.
Sadly, an unimaginable tragedy led to her insight.
Heather Duckworth, like many moms, faced a heartbreaking loss when she lost her young son on June 12, 2000. Since then, she has worked hard to share her important message with all parents.
In 2019, Heather shared her story on Facebook titled “The Blue Stain.” As you read it, you quickly understand why it touches so many hearts.
It all started when Heather was picking up some slime her daughter had dropped on the floor. That’s when everything clicked for her.
Her daughter had tried her best to clean up the stain left by the slime, but Heather naturally had to step in and help too.
Like any parent, she was annoyed by the situation. But as she muttered under her breath, she suddenly remembered another stain from 14 years ago.
Back then, Heather had two-year-old triplets and a four-year-old son. She didn’t have her daughter yet.
One evening, she was struggling to get her four active boys to bed. With four young children, life was a whirlwind of activity and chaos.
She spent most of her time chasing her kids, often feeling like she was on the brink of a third world war.
“My hands were full, but so was my heart,” she said.
As night drew near that evening 14 years ago, she recalled the struggle of feeding and bathing all four boys, all the while cleaning up after the usual mess.
The children had music blasting and ran around singing and dancing, full of energy as usual. This would be the last time in a while that this kind of atmosphere would prevail in the house… for several reasons.
Amidst the chaos and her struggle to get the boys in bed, she looked down at the carpet and saw a large ink-blue stain.
One of the triplets, Jacob, stood nearby, broken pen in hand — the ink had spread all over the carpet. It was also all over his pajamas, his body and more or less everything else in the room!
Needless to say, upon witnessing this, Heather lost it. Her patience was on the brink.
“I felt so upset as I grabbed my son and took him to the bathroom to clean him up. My husband started scrubbing the bright blue stains on our carpet. Tears of frustration stung my eyes. I was just so tired and mad. Not mad at my son, who looked like a Smurf, but at myself for leaving that pen where he could reach it,” Heather said.
“We had only lived in this house for six months, and now the carpet was completely ruined. We scrubbed that stain for an hour, but it wouldn’t come out.”
Heather and her husband even hired professional cleaners, but nothing worked.
The stain bothered her every time she saw it. “It made me feel angry and like a failure for leaving the pen out. That blue stain was just a big negative in my life. I hated it,” Heather said.
But then, her frustration with the stain disappeared in a single, life-changing moment.
The little boy who had broken the pen was soon diagnosed with cancer. Two years after the heartbreaking news, Jacob was gone.
As Jacob went to heaven, the blue stain remained.
“It was still there . . . and now . . . it was a constant reminder of my son. It was a constant reminder of my frustration over something so trivial . . . something so unimportant in the scheme of life.”
Heather now wants mothers everywhere to realize that young children will of course always make a mess. Raising young children can be incredibly frustrating and as they get older, a parent faces new trials and challenges.
For Heather, the blue stain is now a constant reminder that life with children can be messy, but is so worth living.
It’s a constant reminder not to sweat the small stuff. A constant reminder that “things” are not important, but people are.
A constant reminder that accidents happen. A constant reminder of letting go of all the little things and focusing on what really matters.
MISS THIS FACEI really miss this face.The face of my son.It has been almost 13 years since he passed away at the…
Heather calls the mess a “blessing in disguise” and admits that she would live with a million blue ink stains, if it meant she could have a single day more with her son.
She wants to remind mothers and fathers around the world that they should not become absorbed and stressed about everything happening around them and forget to enjoy the little things in life that sometimes appear frustrating.
Heather continues to clean, wash and scrub away after her children — but now, as she does so, she is constantly reminded of the time she spent in hospital with her little boy.
It’s so important to remember to focus on the important things in life and not get too frustrated when your children make a mess, even leaving permanent ‘blue stains’ behind.
Dirty pajamas, smurf faces and large stains on carpets are just proof that we did something right along our path. We had children.
Like and share Heather’s words if you agree with this mom!
