Sunday, August 19, 2012

Babies Growing Up ... Mommies Growing Up

I haven’t written in awhile, too many thoughts in my head. I wonder, who am I writing this TO/FOR? I see posts on Facebook directed to A person; yet they are posted on a public site? Does the posting person want to allow everyone in on a private comment, that is no longer private? I don’t get it. Then, I look at myself and wonder who I am speaking to when I write this blog. It is an outlet to place something deep within myself into a bottle and throw it out to sea.












My blogs are messages in bottles … No idea what shoreline they will wash upon or who will open the bottle, or if that person will even understand my message. I still throw it anyway …      

The truth is, time is passing too quickly for me and I am attempting to freeze moments. I look at things longer now … I look at my children longer. I hug them tighter and for just a few more seconds. I smile at them more. I kiss them more. One day, I know I will have to rely on this reservoir of memories, so I am stockpiling them. I look happy because I am happy, but I am scared, really scared, and I cry a lot. Not necessarily because I’m sad, I just seem to need to cry.
 
          Watching everyone age is all quite overwhelming. Children are now adults, MY children are evolving into adults. My father is now a grandfather and great grandfather. My friends and I have wrinkles and get called “Sir and Ma’am” by the people who look the age we feel … but are not.
My daughter, the child whose birth gave me my most prized title of “Mother,” just started her senior year of high school. We are experiencing the last time things will happen. Her last school bag and supplies were bought, her last first day of school, her last school pictures for a yearbook were made …
I am about to be the mother of an adult and I don’t know how to be that.
The hard core truth of the matter is I am walking blindly through a path I have not seen paved by a mom, so I don’t have a guideline to follow. I have to make my own path, and it is intimidating as hell. I am the mom, but I long for the mom bond that people have from the time they were a baby. The kind that all the greeting cards talk about …

Mom, you were there to dry my every tear.

Mom, you are my best friend.

OR …

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.”
~Ann Taylor

I want to call that mom that is always available to her child and ask how to do this … how to be the mom of an adult. I want to remember how my mom guided me so I can reenact it with my girls, maybe even polish it up a bit. If I had seen and felt this process when I was evolving into an adult, I know I wouldn’t feel like I have just been thrown in the deep end of the pool.

That’s my pain. Granted, the mother who gave birth to me has not invested the mom time to fill this void. Unfortunately, she is the only one who could wear the hat and there are no substitutes for her role; therefore, it shall not be worn. When I see my friends going through the motions of life, along with the invisible strength I can seemingly see of a mom cushion, I feel like an orphan. Though my dad goes above and beyond, I still feel like my bike only has one wheel.
I wonder, why? How?
It’s amazing how death can take someone, but their love, memory and energy never fade. We can still feel strength from someone even when they are no longer here. All the more confusing that the person can be here, but we cannot feel their strength or energy. Even sadder is to realize it’s too late for that person to try and quickly place the bridges and foundations needed to travel this stretch of road. I see how far removed we are from the window of opportunity and it looks like a ship sailing over a horizon.

Gone.


I want mom memories. Good mom memories. I want to survive on the fumes of memories that will carry and guide me through how to be a mom and watch my children turn into adults. Remembering a tear in her eye as she beamed with pride the day I reached some huge milestone in life. ANY milestone would do. It didn’t go quite like that …
I’m sure I will figure this out. Crazy as it sounds, it feels similar to the emotions I had when it was time to stop nursing my babies. Somehow, God had given me a way to solely sustain the nourishment for my children. Just me. When it was time for them to survive without me, literally, it was bittersweet. Granted, I certainly do not wish to still be that supply! Nor do I wish to still be supporting my children when they are my age. I really want to watch them as they walk through life, hopefully using a few of the skills I have tried so hard to teach them. It’s just hard to be experiencing this for the first time and being on this side.
They have asked why I cry at different times. Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere. To see one of them blowing out a birthday candle, sleeping after a fun filled birthday party, singing in a school play, getting an award, their first days of school entering a new grade, or simply laughing and playing with friends … I catch myself tearing up.
I suppose, to a degree it is selfish of me to wish I had been seen the way I see my children. I just want to know what it feels like, that’s all. Sometimes I feel I am doubly enjoying my mom role. I’m enjoying it for me and them.

The good news is this: If God gave me the choice to bear a pain in order to spare my child of it, I would run forward with my hand in the air yelling, “PICK ME GOD!! PICK ME! I WANT TO TAKE IT!”

Even though my relationship with my mom, or lack thereof, has felt unbearable at times, I would not change a thing if it meant my girls will never know what that feels like. They are now old enough and we have passed the point that they ever will. No matter if God takes me from this earth today, my girls will never doubt or wonder the things I never wanted to doubt and wonder. And that is why my cup runneth over.


In this way, the love of Heaven and God shines upon the face of my children.



 That gives me more happiness than anything I could imagine…




Love,
Kasi

2 comments:

  1. This is the most 'precious' thing I've ever read. A copy of this writing should be in every hospital as part of the 'new baby gift package' that goes home with the mothers. This insight is as important as milk, diapers and even carseats!
    Kasi, you need to write a 'Motherhood for Dummies'!
    Love ya♥
    Nanny

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  2. My dear friend. Your girls are a wonderful glorious reflection of you, your love and God's grace. Every moment He gives you what you need and you, my special friend, never fail to receive. This is what makes you the mom you are and will continue to be. None of us have a clue going in to this world of motherhood....we learn, we love, we learn and we love more and more. You are doing it right. Hang on...the best is yet to come!

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