Motherhood

I'm reading Motherless Daughters, a book by Hope Edelman about women who lost their mothers, many at young ages. Edelman lost her own mother to cancer when she was 17, when her mother was 42. The book is about how women, children suffer, grieve, and struggle to find a way to continue living after losing their mothers.

I'm reading the book on my computer in the middle of a local Starbucks. It's packed in here. At times I find myself ducking behind the computer because I feel the tears coming.

I can't stop thinking about my own children as I read. It is one of my greatest fears, that something may happen to me or Jeff or both of us, and our children will have to suffer the pain of such a loss. I can picture their little faces, mixed with confusion, fear, shock. How could they understand such a devastation? Who will comfort them? It makes me feel panicked just to think about it. And I think about how it would be better for all of us to go together than to put our kids through such misery.

Jeff and I are practical. We have our paperwork squared away. We have amazing friends who have agreed to step in if anything should have. We consider them family, and their children love ours. We know our backup plan couldn't be any better, but I also know that if anything should happen, our children would be thrown off their tracks forever, psychologically and emotionally.

I think of these women who suffered such devastations in their lives, and I think about how sheltered and privileged my life has been. No serious tragedies, no horrible misfortunes. Not even a broken bone. My own family intact. Healthy, beautiful children. The thought makes me want to cross my fingers.

The book also makes me think about the role of motherhood. Until now, I had focused mainly on keeping my children healthy, clean, fed, rested, and educated. But Edelman writes about what she misses about her own mother:

Even now, her absence remains a terrible hole. No home to return to for a holiday celebration. No one to tell me what I was like as a child, or to reassure or comfort me as a mother. 

I paused over her line about not having someone who knew her as a child. We are witnesses to our children's lives, witnesses with the best seats in the house. We hold in ourselves an archive of their lives, the most pivotal moments as well as the mundane, from their first breath until our last.

I replay in my mind the moment my son was born over six years ago. My obstetrician pulled him out and plopped him right on my belly, his umbilical cord still in tact, his body still slimy. He took a second to shake off the shock and then started screaming, maybe at the indignity of it all. I started bawling because I couldn't believe this little person was real, that he had come into my life.

I think about the privilege of being a mother. This exceptional place that we hold in the hearts and lives of these little people who grow up to run this world. My four-year old daughter loves to say, "Mommy is all mine, all mine." She most frequently says it to Jeff. Sometimes, she tells him not to touch me, or to wait his turn before touching me, because I'm all hers. And I love being her magical, special person, not because I did anything in particular, but simply because I am her mother.

That thought makes me want to be a better mother. To give them more hugs. To console them better when they cry. To listen more attentively. To articulate more clearly to them what they mean to me. And to build a reserve of my love in their hearts, just in case.

It also makes me want to document our lives better. So that I'm not the sole curator of our archives. So that their future self-understanding, their future well-being will be less dependent on me.

I know it's not enough. It will not ward off the pain if some tragedy should befall our family. But I know of no other way to protect my children.

For me, becoming a parent has changed my attitude toward survival. Before, when I was alone, I never particularly cared about it. Not in some morbid way, but I figured I'd had a good enough life and when it's time to go, it's time to go. Now, I can't afford not to survive. My children need me. I have to stick around. I would guess many of those mothers who left their children behind felt the same way.