I Chose to Be Their Mother
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When people learn that I earned my medical degree and graduated at the top of my class, they sometimes ask why I chose not to pursue the career many expected me to have.
The answer has always been simple.
I chose to be their mother.
Medicine was never something I took lightly. I worked incredibly hard for that degree. Becoming a physician was a dream I carried for years, and earning my medical degree remains one of the accomplishments I am most grateful for.
Then God entrusted us with something even greater.
Our children.
As I stood at the beginning of both callings—medicine and motherhood—I understood something about myself.
For me, I knew I couldn't do either halfway.
If I was going to care for patients, I wanted to give them my full attention, my whole mind, and the very best of myself.
And if I was going to raise my children, I wanted to do the same.
I never believed there was one right choice for every woman or every family.
I only knew what the right choice was for me.
So I chose home.
I chose school mornings.
Lunches packed before sunrise.
Field trips.
Homework around the kitchen table.
Late-night conversations.
Football games.
Choir rehearsals and choir performances.
Doctor's appointments—not as the physician, but as Mama.
I chose to be there for the countless ordinary moments that, at the time, did not seem extraordinary at all.
There were busy days, exhausting days, and days when I wondered whether I was doing enough.
Raising five children was not always easy.
But I never regretted the life I chose.
Not for a single day.
Medicine taught me how precious life is.
Motherhood taught me what to do with that knowledge.
It taught me that caring for someone is not always dramatic.
Sometimes it is making dinner when you are tired.
Waiting up when someone is late.
Listening to a story you have already heard.
Sitting beside a child who is worried.
Encouraging them when they doubt themselves.
Showing up again and again, even when no one notices.
Those years passed more quickly than I ever imagined they would.
Today, my children are grown. They are building homes, careers, marriages, and families of their own.
And yet, when they come home, I still see the children they once were.
I see them around the table.
I hear their voices filling the house.
I remember the uniforms, the rehearsals, the homework, the worries, the laughter, and all the ordinary days in between.
Now there are grandchildren running through the same doors.
Another generation is beginning its own story.
Looking back, I do not feel that I gave up one life for another.
I simply chose the life I believed God was calling me to live.
Degrees can be framed.
Awards can be displayed.
Careers can be measured.
But the measure of a mother is found in the lives of her children.
They carry what we teach them, how we love them, and how we love them into the homes and families they are now building.
That was the life I wanted to build.
Degrees tell people what we accomplished.
Children remember how we loved.
If there is one thing I hope my children carry with them, it is not what I could have become.
I hope they remember what it felt like to grow up in our home.
That I was there.
For the ordinary Tuesdays.
For the football games.
For the choir rehearsals and choir performances.
For the conversations around the kitchen table.
For the moments that quietly became a lifetime.
I hope they remember that they were heard.
That they were encouraged.
That they were deeply loved.
That they always knew they could come home.
I believe God blessed us with children, but more than that, I believe He trusted us with them.
I wanted to honor that trust by giving them the best of myself.
For me, that was never a sacrifice.
It was a privilege.
—
With you always,
Levisa