Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 11, the day when we celebrate our mothers, grandmothers, wives and daughters with brunches or breakfasts, flowers or just a phone call for those of us who live too far away to travel.

The day also offers those who have lost their mother a chance to reflect on her influence on their lives.

When my wife and I were about to celebrate her first Mother’s Day with our daughter, Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham, in 2019, I wrote, “As our daughter has grown from a purely instinct-driven newborn into a tiny person with personality, habits, moods, idiosyncrasies, quirks and sometimes even attitude, my wife has become the type of mother every child should have: Endlessly caring, always playful and wholly fixated on Athena’s needs and her happiness.”

Since then, my wife has born to our family our twins, Artemis Leia Aurora Claire River Song Éowyn Fox Graham and Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham, who just turned 3 years old.

Managing three children under age 7 daily is no easy task, though we’re fortunate our eldest is at school for five days a week, taking off some of the pressure.

But summer break is just two and a half weeks away, and then all three will be at home … While I’m here writing editorials and managing the newspaper for you, our dear readers, my wife is caring for our toddlers, enriching them with games, play and learning as she did for Athena before she started going to school.

I can say that my wife is stellar, and the better parent.

She can manage taking them to the store, the park, the library, community events or activities on her own several times a week. I took them to the store and the splash pad at Sunset Park this weekend and my wife pre-packed the kids’ snacks, towels, water, sunscreen, diapers for the twins and a change of clothes, knowing my by-the-seat-of-my-pants cavalier parenting is insufficient for managing three kids in the wild. All the kids returned home with all 30 fingers and toes, no cuts or scars, which is a good day worthy of song and story, but something she does daily, seemingly without breaking a sweat.

In 2019, I also wrote, “Simply put, my wife is a Disney princess. I’m what those artists draw when they go drinking.” That still holds true. I can handle and navigate elected officials, agitated residents, the legalese of lawsuits, government bureaucracy and political intrigue — but the innate talents of motherhood are beyond my skillset.

The chaos of a newsroom on deadline and a tumultuous news cycle is nothing like grappling with an independent kindergartner and twin henchmen.

We can rationalize with residents or government officials — usually — but a screaming 3-year-old son who really wants the one toy he can’t describe with a limited vocabulary in the midst of an emotional meltdown is beyond all my understanding. Although, unsurprisingly, my wife can somehow decipher it. I’m certain most fathers feel this way when comparing their parenting to that of their mothers of their children.

Through two pregnancies, I watched my wife’s body change from that of a lover to a mother as she carried our future in her womb and was there with her as all three children emerged into the world and took their first breaths as human beings. My wife had known them months before I did, as they kicked and turned inside her. All of us are here because a mother carried us and showed us the world thereafter.

Our Paleolithic ancestors were as astounded by the creation of humans as we are, watching a female body change over months until birth, then providing sustenance so helpless infants could stand on their own and become members of a tribe. Early humans created the first artworks depicting pregnant female figures for that reason.

My wife has given our trio childhoods of music, art, rhymes, games, wonder and magic with trips to the store, forays to local parks, endless hours of stories and picture books of animals, planets, trucks, Jedi and other children — adventurous experiences to show them the world they inhabit and the world they could inhabit if they imagine it to be so.

You can read this newspaper, hike Oak Creek Canyon, wonder at the constellations, drive lonely long roads, dance to live music in a crowded bar, write poems about past lovers, march for a political cause, and tell stories to children because one mother shared her heartbeat with you and held you in her arms after you emerged, naked and alone, in an utterly foreign world.

Mothers are “love” and the reason why we can.