It's hard to believe that it was 31 years ago that I celebrated my first Mother's Day from the "Mom" side of the fence. I remember looking down into those bright blue four and a half month old eyes and wondering just what was going on in that little brain of his. I remember dreaming of all the good times we would have and pondering just what he would be like. What would he be when he grew up? I dreamt of the man he would grow up to be and the family he would have. I'd daydream about future holidays and how he'd come up behind me, hugging me and kissing me on the cheek as his brood filed in from the car followed by a wife who would smile as she said "hi mom." They ooh and aah over the spread I'd have prepared. Ah the dreams of a new mother.
As we'd share those bonding moments, he'd sit and coo at me like he knew what I was thinking, somehow laughing at the dreams I had. He had a smile that would light up a room and his giggle could bring down giants of men. And the boy had lungs. Boy did he have lungs. He could curl the toes of a hundred year old oak tree with that wail of his. Mercifully it wasn't called into action too often - mostly during the teething phase. It was in those moments of frustration that my grandmother's words of wisdom would come to the front of my cerebral cortex - "brandy and egg nog." Not sure whether that advice was for the baby or me. It was in those early Mother's Days that I missed my mom the most. I missed that she missed out on being a grandmother. Now as I sit here and think of Eli, I realize even more how much she would have loved being a grandmother, but she never got the chance.
I think of my Aunt, too, and how she was never even blessed with the joy of motherhood, although she lived it vicariously through my brothers and I. As tough as she tried to be on the outside, I always knew there was a creme puff hiding in there that would have made a wonderful mother. I'm not sure exactly why she wasn't able to be one, it was never talked about, but I do remember the first time I gave her one of those alternative Mother's Day cards and how she cried and cried. She was nobody's mother and I was no longer my mom's daughter ~ death had stripped me of that ~ yet we filled a void in each other's lives. I miss her too.
I look back on the special women in my life ~ they bring tears and they bring smiles. It's bittersweet really. I think of my own son and grandson and wonder if I'll even get a call. Hard to tell. Never in a million years, when I think back to the Mother's Days when I got hand drawn cards and plaster of paris hands, that I would have to wonder if he'd even think of me on Mother's Day. Yet here I am. Not sure when the transition began or even why, but somewhere along the line he's lost respect and care. It hurts. I wonder how the little boy who used to stretch his arms out from end to end stating emphatically that he loved me "berry, berry much" could one day have his heart hardened as stone against me. He knows he hurts me by not calling. He holds my grandson hostage and I don't have the fight left in me to play these games. I'll go to church tomorrow and see all the kids ~ young and old alike ~ fawning over there moms and I'll fight back tears. If he does decide to grace me with a call, it will come at the end of the day, close to 10 pm, as if he were marking an item off his to-do list out of obligation. I'm never sure if I'm feeling better when he does that or when he doesn't call at all - like at Easter.
In all fairness, I know he's having a hard time believing that his mom is dying. Yet, he started acting this way before any of us knew the seriousness of my disease. It's hard for me not to feel resentful of all that I sacrificed through the years for him. I literally almost died when I had him... I was in the hospital for over a month. Through the years, I've put my hopes and dreams on the backburner so that he could have the best chances at a good and productive life. I was not a perfect mother, never claimed to be, but I have to give myself credit for being a pretty good and involved one - whether he noticed or not. All through his schooling and beyond, I was involved in his day to day life. I was PTA president and Band Parent president after that. I was even a Little League coach and umpire so that I could share that common bond with him. How many moms do you know that do that? I'm still in touch with many of his friends from his younger days... many of them will read this and wonder themselves what happened.
Whatever his reasons are for pulling back, they're his alone. I've tried to ask him, in a very calm, non-accusatory way, and was met with this - "I don't have an answer for that." Not exactly music to a mother's ears. So this Mother's Day I'm going to do things a little bit unconventionally, a little bit different. This year I'm going to give him a gift for Mother's Day and that's the gift of forgiveness. I forgive him for breaking my heart into a million little pieces and scattering them into the wind and my wish from him? That he'll do the same for me, whatever the infraction he has perceived that I have done. There would be no better Mother's Day gift in the world to me. After all, if there is one lesson I have known seemingly my whole life ~ it's that life is short.
Happy Mother's Day y'all and may your time spent with family be blessed beyond measure. ((hugs))
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