I Mother No One
I admire those who do.
I am mother to none. I do not have children of my own. I am at a point in my life where I am okay with this. I do not long for children. I will tell you that I have had my fair share of watching five beautiful boys grow up before my eyes, under my care, however, they were not mine. I did not give birth to them.
THEY ARE MY BLOOD.
Mother’s Day is a beautifully sad day for me. I have done some much needed growing and have come to terms with the pain that once hung over my head regarding my mother and I. We are very different. I seek her in my adulthood in ways I may have never done so while living under her roof.
WE ARE BETTER TO EACH OTHER NOW.
Each year, there is divine intervention reminding me that things could have been worse. But, I lived through my WORST. And, it was horrific. But, it was needed.
I say this because, had the turmoil never occurred, I would have never known how much a mother relinquishes when she has children. Your sanity is no longer something you can keep tabs on. Your body takes on a form that you may not recognize, still you have to love it. Your soul needs more pruning because you have other little souls tearing at it day and night.
YOU GET ABSOLUTELY NO REST EVEN WHEN YOU’RE RESTING!
And, when you are suffering from depression, this is made harder times 10. Loving someone with depression is difficult. It is a constant battle that is not easily won. You are a bystander and all you can do is stand by and watch God will away the sanity of a once sound mind. It withers. There is no fine tuning to take place. The heart is beating, the body is stable, but without the mind at its fully functioning and ultimate prime;
THERE IS NOTHING THERE!
The beauty of being a girl watching a woman give so much of herself to everyone, but herself, cannot be fully explained. She gave and gave and gave and then, she could no longer give. Try explaining this to a ten-year-old girl (hello, Missy & Lacy). But, I witnessed the power of love. The power of selflessness. I witnessed someone remove a big part of herself to please the ones she loved, until she just could not anymore. Then, we became broken.
Fast forward, years later, we are so much better for and to each other. I cannot imagine my life without my mother. Without her quirkiness. Her brash ways. Her almost immediate need to be loud and very vocal. It is accepted.
She Is Mine.
Virgo to my Aries, I am sometimes floored by the night and day of us. However, I reap the benefits of our similarities too. She has suffered enough. In my teens and early twenties, I blamed her more than I should have. I did not want to hear about her pain:
“YOU ARE OUR MOTHER! SUCK IT UP AND TAKE CARE OF US!”
You cannot take something like that back. There is no rewind button in life. Time continues on whether you want it to or not. I am grateful for a mother who sauntered on. Who picked herself up, fought through the cloudiness, and regained control. And, everything that took place that I thought was killer to my life, I am now learning to forgive. The two of us are… working through the pain.
I am grateful for a mother who has loved me wholly from the top of my head to the soles of my feet without wanting anything from me in return but…
LOVE.
Author’s Note: I have had the pleasure to read & connect with some amazing writers and I am honored to share this space with: Littree, Crooked Little Flower, WalkerJojones, Random thought, L., and Karen Kilbane.
