The Privilege of Motherhood

 Since on this Mother’s Day I’m a permanently motherless, temporarily childless mother, I’ve decided that mixed in with my grief, I’m going to sweeten up my day with meanderings of mother moments. 

It’s a given that the birth of a baby is a miracle.  But I was continually enthralled by the miracle of communication.  From about six months old my daughter helped me make coffee every morning.  I’d place the filter in the coffee maker and pour the water in the top.  Sitting on the counter, she’d reach over and turn it on.  One morning I said, “Turn it on.”  She looked at me and grunted.  I repeated, “Turn it on, Casey.”  She grunted louder.  Had she had words at six months, I would have heard, “Mom, you forgot to pour the water in.”  But our Timmy and Lassie intimacy was enough to warn me of my near caffeine catastrophe.

At about fourteen months, when my son could speak only one word at a time, my husband and I would take him in the stroller to the beach most Saturdays.  This was before I was so health conscious, so we’d stop and pick up doughnuts on the way.  One Saturday morning, while my husband ate his doughnut, bees gathered around him.  He swatted at one, then two then several and finally took off running with his doughnut.  Riley and I laughed so hard.  On the way home, several times, Riley laughed, swatting his hand back and forth and said, “Daddy?  Bees?”  For weeks he regaled us with the story of the time his dad frantically swatted and ran from bees at the beach.  “Daddy?  Bees?”

 

The rewards of motherhood are usually subtle and hard harvested.  It generally takes a real consciousness to value the little bonds, precious looks or learnings.  I remember sitting on our porch with my four year old son listening to the trees whisper in the wind, watching the balls off sunlight bounce around the porch.  The time was sweet and easy.  He asked me, “Hey Mom. If trees come from seeds, and seeds come from trees, then where did the first tree come from?”  I loved the question and equally loved that I didn’t have an answer.  We relished the wondering on the porch, just as I relish the memory of that time together.

Once in a while the rewards are right out there, handed to us.  Two little memories are this year’s Mother’s Day gifts from my absent kids.  When my daughter was just two and already potty trained, she came into the bathroom and sat down on the stool next to me, while I sat on the toilet.  She stayed quiet at my side for a minute or so, then asked, “Did you poop?”  I said, “Yes.”  She said, “Good job.”   I hadn’t been praised for that in over thirty years.

Another reward came from my son after a struggle together.  He had hair issues in fourth and fifth grade.  He had let his hair grow long only because he was afraid to cut it.  Change was scary to him, but when waiters would ask what my daughters wanted to order and I’d correct them, Riley would become more frustrated.  Finally one day he agreed to let me try to cut his hair.  At first I made a mess of things.  There were tears and breaks and new trials and more tears.  We got closer to something better and his horror melted into puddle of resignation.  I said, “Why don’t we go to a barber shop and they can just clean this up?”  He agreed.  The barber gave him a short boy haircut that looked fantastic.  On our walk home my son said, “Thanks for helping me through all that, Mom.”

Knowing Mother's Day was near, I've been missing my mom a lot.  I realize today that a big part of my grief over losing her is grounded in feeling sorry for her.  I feel sorry for my mother's struggles, her losses and her regrets in life.  She struggled with sleep and getting on top of tasks.  She grieved the loss of her ability to play her piano because of arthritis.  She regretted missed opportunities because of the choices she made in life.  I expressed this sentiment in a poem I wrote for her one Mother’s Day:

A Life

Dawn

From her mother’s womb

She gazes upon a chorus of colors

Harmony and dissonance strike

A fanciful chord of crimson

And she dances

Late morning

In her mother’s room

She rests alone on her settee

Shape and pigment fray

Into a single glaze of gray

And she wonders

Noon

Out in her mother’s garden

She prances barefoot among the poppies

Stamen and petal swell

To a full prism of pastel

And she dreams

Dusk

Within her mother’s walls

She pulls tight the screen door

Black and ivory wait

Above a murmur of mauve

And she grieves

Night

By her mother’s bedside

She folds the day’s linens

Fabric and fragrance mingle

The forgotten colors

She tries to sleep

I feel sorry for my mom because she didn’t know what hit her in her last week of life. And while I can’t change history, I can change what I choose to remember.  I remember that my mom was forgiving and continued to love me in spite of the heartache I caused her in my adolescence.  She was nurturing when we kids were sick.  I remember company and effort at bringing down my fever with a wet wash cloth that she repeatedly rinsed in a bowl of cold water.  I remember her dedication to teaching kids how to play the piano, and her professionalism at the recitals she held in our living room.  I remember the pleasure she got from playing Brahms and other pieces I recognize today can’t name.  I remember her friendship in my adulthood.  She listened, worried, felt sorry for me when I struggled, and even bought me a new kitchen when I divorced.  My ex-husband’s mother bought him a crock pot, I told her.  I remember her support when my daughter and I went through the horrors of teenage hell.  She never once said, “I know exactly how you feel,” having the grace not to rub what goes around comes around in my face.  I remember that she was my best fan of my art work and my writing.

If I think about my mom’s great success as a mother and friend, a musician and teacher, rather than a sufferer, I still grieve, but with more of a sense of celebration.  My mother lived a great life simply because she was a mother, a role of great privilege, a role she taught me a lot about, a role I’m cherishing more today because of these memories.  I’m going to work on writing another poem with that sentiment.  But for now I’m going to share a recipe for the dish she used to request on Mother’s Day and on her birthday along with a couple of Butt Poems for my best fan.

Veggie Quiche

That same old pie crust I use every time.

1 and 1/3 cups of low fat buttermilk

½ onion chopped

1 large package of white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

1 small or ½ large red pepper chopped

1 package of frozen chopped spinach thawed

4 eggs

1 c. grated cheese like cheddar, swiss, gouda, jack, whatever you like

1 tomato thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Make that same old pie crust described in other posts.  You’ll have to find it because I’m too busy writing this right now.  Sauté onions, mushrooms and peppers with oil, salt and pepper. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs and buttermilk and whisk well with a fork.  Add veggies without the juice and cheese.  Squeeze out the liquid from the spinach and stir the spinach into eggs.  Pour into pie crust and arrange tomatoes on top.  Cook at 375 degrees for about 45 to 50 minutes or until it doesn’t wobble when you jiggle it.

Don’t eat too much of this high fat meal lest you plan to sprout a plump patooti. You may need to release the elastic around your waist.

Fancy Nancy

When Fancy Nancy

Dressed up for Easter

Her spastic elastic

Released her keister   

Too Much

Too much tutti-frutti

Makes you sprout a plump patooti

Too much fudgy ice cream

Builds a bulge across the beam

With too much chocolate mousse

You’ll produce a big caboose

So watch how much you eat

If you like your seat petite