like my mom

midlife musings on my mother

A lifetime is not long enough to appreciate one’s mother. Who she is, what she means to me and how she loves is always deepening in my experience. I am blessed still to have my mother in my life. She lives on the other side of the ocean, but she lives also in my heart, in my habits, in my smile and in almost every gesture of my own mothering.

Do you remember the first time that you did something that reminded you of your mother? The first time that the thought slipped through your mind - that is just like my mother! I think I was a teenager at the time, and the thought was tinged with negativity. Maybe I had made a critical remark that wasn’t necessary or took a too-sharp tone with my newlywed husband. I recognized her shortcomings in myself. It is fairly universal that young women set out to be unlike their mothers. We try to push away from the familiar pitfalls and hope to take on a shiny new shape of our own.

But becoming a mother myself - that changed everything. At the tender age of 21, I became pregnant with Aria. As I devoured books on pregnancy, birth and parenting, I shaped a vision of myself as a mother that looked a lot like her. In fact, my mom was by far my best coach and resource when that baby arrived. Her wisdom gave me so many advantages as a young mother. Her hard-working, strong and loving energy buoyed me week after week, phase after phase.

She taught me how to swaddle, how to sing lullabies, how to play. She taught me how to wait instead of swooping in immediately to rescue, to give my child a creative space to develop and healthy food to grow. Thanks to her, I knew how to discipline with consistency. I knew that children are capable of acting with manners and respect and also how to comfort them when they cried. What a treasure she had given me. And now I could give that treasure on to my own children. I was so very blessed.

Do you know when my mother was most supremely my hero? When she braided Eleni’s hair. My mother was my copartner on each and every long distance trip for Eleni’s medical therapy. Without her I could never have pulled it off. Traveling with a high needs, medically complex baby was not for the faint of heart. My mother got it. She knew that Eleni was suffering. She didn’t avoid that reality. And yet, she dressed my baby in the pretty handmade dresses I had made for her before everything went terribly wrong and she braided Eleni’s wispy hair. My mother’s eyes shone with delight and with courage.

I will never forget her example to me that day. It is fixed in my mind, though I don’t seem to have a picture. Still many days she fixed Eleni’s hair in one way or another. Even in the soul-crushing grief of Eleni’s terrible medical prognosis, we could and should enjoy beautiful Eleni. I wish I had done that more often.

Since my move abroad, I miss very much the weekly walks that my mother and I used to share. Although our contact is less, I notice that my appreciation of her continues to grow. I was so touched with how she accepted my divorce, even though divorce is a big, bad word in our family. Since then I’ve bumbled through a few relationships. She gives advice without making me feel like a failure. When I’ve felt broken and vulnerable, she has shared intimate aspects of her own story that buoy me once again.

This week my mother is visiting me for the first time in The Netherlands! It means so much to have her presence here and to get to show her the life I have chosen for myself. I wrote this post, surely long overdue, to tell her how much I love her, appreciate her, admire her.

To all of our mothers, we love you. We aspire to be like you too.