My First Mother's Day

In After the Fall, Arthur Miller writes, "The word 'now' is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks." Isn't that true. How do I embrace and live fully in the now? My prayer this Mother's Day, and, really, every day, is "Oh, Lord, may these days go slowly and be full of joy."

While I look forward to knowing my Ella as a girl, a teenager, a woman, I feel the haunting ache of missing of her, of moving on, of being old.

I also ache because the relationship that I have with my own mom is so devoid of intimacy. I pray that this will also change, but I have to realize that it quite likely will not. I love my mom. But I am sad that, as I read others' 'Mother's Day blogs,' I see lists of "what I learned from my mom" or the like, I feel that while I do have a list of 'what I learned,' they aren't all great. In my journey, I have felt guilty for not 'respecting' or 'loving enough,' or 'insert guilt-induced-phrase here.' She did rock me, love me, stay up for hours with my nosebleeds, and was, in general, a wonderful mom, doing the best she could with the past she has. But that isn't any reason to lie to myself. So, please understand that while you may feel that this is a mean and ungrateful thing for me to be doing, that it really is necessary for me, and that I love and respect my mother perhaps more than ever before because of my honesty.

Things my mom taught me:

• To love learning.
• To love reading.
• To read to my own kids at bedtime. And read the same book again and again and again.
  
• That wearing makeup doesn't matter.
• That careless car mishaps are the reason we have car insurance, and aren't worth being too upset about.
  
• To never want anything in order to keep from being disappointed.
• To never share your feelings out of fear of making someone mad.
• To never be a student of yourself. It is too painful and you shouldn't want to actually change.
• To avoid confrontation.
• To sweep uncomfortable things under the rug.
• To insulate myself from friends--they are not to be trusted or confided in.
• That any man is going to be unfaithful, and we women are meant to endure it.
• That work is more important than family.
• That emotional intimacy is dangerous and will be used against you.
• That your husband isn't really on your team.
• That she doesn't really have an interest in knowing me, just an interest in assuming she knows me.
• That money is a mode of love.
  
• That I am incapable of doing anything without her help.

I pray that my children will always know that I am curious to know who they truly are. That they will never feel like there is a 'thing'--work, hobby, etc--that is worth more than they are. That they will know that my husband and I are co-captains, independent people, and in love. That they will know that honest communication sometimes means hurting others. That they will know that sharing yourself is dangerous, but necessary. That they will know what grace looks like. That they will know that being angry with someone does not mean there is any removal of love. Really, I suppose I pray that I can define family in a much different way that I knew.

I remember as a child, perhaps I was ten, saying to myself "I want to marry someone who is a good communicator." Of course I also wanted someone handsome, who would be a good father, creative, and, oh, and the list goes on. But I remember that one request above the rest. And, I only recently remembered this--all within the process of differentiation and growth in our marriage. I sat back to realize how blessed I am to have a man who is the one who made me a mother, the one who will cooperatively raise our children with me, who challenges me to be a strong, confident, independent woman, and who, regardless of the pain and frustration, has taught me how to communicate, to be a team player, and how to share myself.

So, basically, as I look back on my first Mother's Day, I am overwhelmed:

• Thankful that I have my mom, and that we have the opportunity to beautify our relationship.
• Thankful for a husband who has allowed, guided, and helped me to become the woman and mother that I am.
  
• And thankful for my precious Ella, a beautiful and fiery girl whom I am excited to get to know more every day.

A Mother's Tears

David Foster Wallace, in his short story, Incarnations of Burned Children, found in his collection, Oblivion: Stories, leaves the reader with a haunting image: "If you've never wept and want to, have a child."

Even in my love for heavy, some-would-say depressing literature, I personally find this specific story too disturbing to really enjoy. I read it many years ago, and was haunted for months--and, by this one quote, haunted for years--the memory of it has never left my psyche. Wallace's weeping most certainly refers to a suffering, sorrowful place; the cries of a parent when faced with the suffering of their child. But for me, this idea of weeping branches out in so many different directions.

In my first weeks at home, there were so many emotions. Once I began my 'better living through chemistry' regimen treating my postpartum depression, things were much better, and the emotions were real, raw, and amazing.

At night, I often would wake up in anticipation, anxious for Ella to wake up and nurse. I couldn't wait to feel her creeping little fingers, hear her gluttonous breaths, to gaze into her face. I would weep in anticipation. I would weep each evening, knowing that the day was done: loving and reliving every minute of it, and yet, melancholy that it was so quickly in the past. I wept as I realized that as I was anxious to see her smile, but that I didn't want to wish away one moment of the first six weeks. I weep knowing that I will miss her when she is grown, but am excited to know my daughter as a girl, a teenager, a woman. In my opinion, I would define my actions as weeping, but not a weeping from sorrow. It was and is a weeping from a depth that I would never know if I were not a mother.

I know I will have days to weep from sorrow. Weeping for my children, my friends, my family. And I pray for strength in advance. I rejoice that my weeping is based from a heart and life full of joy. I apologize to those of you who have had lifetimes of sorrowful weeping, my thoughts must seem so trite.

As I think about weeping in the bible, it almost always is opposite laughing: Luke 6:21, "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh;" Ecclesiastes 3:4, "A time to weep, and a time to laugh." How interesting that two antonyms can indwell my heart simultaneously. I laugh heartily at Ella's antics--and hidden in my heart is the melancholy weeping that these baby giggles will only last for a season, that this is a fleeting moment; a wonderful season and a heart-stopping moment, but none the less, one that will never be again. I think that is the weight and existence of both emotions that makes either worth feeling. My mother's tears, whether spilled or kept, are dammed in my mother's heart, full of strength and laughter.

Or maybe I just need to up my Zoloft dose.

A Mother's Heart

"Everyone knew the mother of Jesus was named Mary, and that she'd seen suffering of every kind. That she was strong and constant and had a mother's heart."~The Secret Life of Bees
Kelly (and any other English teachers)--I don't have the book with me--so I cannot correctly parenthetically cite this reference. :)

One of the things I fear most in life is pain. For most of my past I've found myself shaping almost all of my actions around the avoidance of pain. I am an expert at avoiding conflict (just ask my husband). I insulate myself by not caring, and therefore avoiding the pain of failure, but, in the meantime, also the joy of success. In general I've lived life with a "I want you to want me, but I want you to leave me alone" motto--whether it be people or jobs, school, or even hobbies.

And then I became a mother.

As a protestant Christian, I did not grow up with the Mother of Sorrows. I grew up with the image of a ''teenage" Mary, forced by God to be seen as a whore, loved by Joseph anyway, and pretty much forgotten about following Jesus' birth--or maybe after she found Him preaching in the temple. (Okay, perhaps that is a bit dramatic--but basically, I never thought about Mary in any kind of liturgical, honoring way.)

In a series of email conversations with my own mother following Ella's birth, she signed one "with a mother's heart, Mom." A mother's heart. And I thought of Mary. She had seen suffering of every kind, remaining strong.

Whenever I read the Christmas story, Luke 2:19: "Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart," has always stood out to me. She listened to all of the miraculous signs and wonders that the shepherds had seen, all of the praise of her newborn son, and stored them away. Would He ever remember the midnight feedings, the way He stuck out His tongue, the mewings and coos on those first few days? No (okay, removing the idea of the whole divine thing and the philisophical discussions of omniscience :)). Mary had those to treasure. Those to remember in her old age. Those to weep over as she watched Him writhe on the cross.

Looking into this idea further, the same phrase is also used when Joseph and Mary leave Jesus at the temple (would you have forgotten the Son of God!? I like to think I most certainly would not have) and return to find him teaching. After somewhat scolding His parents, Jesus 'submits.' And, in Luke 2:51, "His mother kept all these things in her heart." I see an image of Mary simply enjoying every moment, every stage, every age of Jesus--in this case as He becomes a young man.

While I pray that I will never know "suffering of every kind," I do know that I am strong. And I am stronger because I have opened my heart to pain and suffering and because I am a mother. I am strong and I hope that Ella will see an example what a woman truly is.

I hope that my memories of her nursing in the night, the way her hair smells, the unique little things that she does with her hands, the way she will not let her dad out of her sight, and all of the treasures stored in my heart will be relived as I watch her try on wedding dresses and nurse her own children, and not as she suffers the agony of death.

A mother's heart. Full to aching of joy. Love and potential pain. All worth it more than anyone can articulate.

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.