My Momma passed away before I became a mother myself. I never got to call her in the middle of the night when I was experiencing some crazy pregnancy symptom, nor was she by my side as I tried my best to breathe through the pain of my contractions. It’s okay. A lot of fabulous people were there, and that helps.
My point is that there’s a bunch of mommy related stuff that I never had the opportunity to discuss with her. I guess we both figured we’d have plenty of opportunities for that when the time came.
I often wish she was still around naturally, but one of the many reasons is so she could have told me about some of this stuff! She was very logical and learned in so many ways. She loved to read and felt knowledge was power. As a young girl when it became apparent I was hearing about the birds and bees on the school bus she felt necessary to step in. She educated me for sure! I learned all there was to know about puberty and the changes related to that time of my life.
But this motherhood thing is a completely different animal. There’s just so much she never had the chance to tell me. There’s all this stuff that has happened to my body after the birth of my children that I never expected.
She never had the chance to tell me that one day the light from the bathroom mirror would hit my upper lip just right and I would almost faint from the sight of tiny black hairs staring back at me. Black hairs! A mustache. I would be embarrassed for myself and wonder, how long have those been there?! I’d wonder why she never thought to tell me that as my body and hormones changed after childbirth that I would suddenly be competing with my husband in “no shave November.”
I would wish that she had the time to tell me to enjoy all my cute shoes. To enjoy them because one day I would try to squeeze them onto my fat foot and feel like Cinderella’s step-sisters. She knew my love for shoes. I feel certain she would have warned me that my foot would grow half a size with each child.
I’m certain she would have definitely warned me about the varicose veins, how my once youthful, even skin-toned legs would one day take on the appearance of a Rand McNally road map. And that more tiny, rural roads would be constructed on the landscape of my lower extremities after each pregnancy. They would be constructed by the hormone highway authority to apparently connect the growing population of moles and skin tags that moved there after baby number one. I know she would have told me this. I’m certain.
She might not have told me about the chicken neck thing. She probably would have felt too bad to have to tell her eldest child that one day her taunt, seamless neck line would take on a sagging, wrinkled appearance that happened to coincide with the dark caverns under her eyes from months of little to no sleep. She probably wouldn’t have had the heart to tell me that little nugget.
I know she tried to tell me how my emotional stability would go out the window along with my favorite hobby of reading a novel in a hot bubble bath for hours on end. I’m not sure if she ever told me I would forever be an emotional wreck on a roller coaster ride held captive by my irrational hormones, but I certainly saw it growing up. I remember tears during funny commercials or an over-reaction at a cup hitting the floor and smashing into pieces. I remember thinking, “mom’s so weird.” Ahhhhh. Touché mommy. You tried to tell me that one.
There was a lot of stuff she never had the chance to tell me about being a mommy, but I remember the few things she did have the chance to impart.
By the time my mom had my three siblings I was old enough to understand things and see how she handled the whole motherhood thing. She had those kids like little stair-steps and they were wide open, crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but as a teenager I told mom they had to quit getting pregnant or I was moving out.
All I’m saying is it was a lot to handle, and not just for me. For her! Four kids. Working as a nurse full-time. Being a loving wife, and taking care of a home. Overwhelming doesn’t even begin to describe it. But that’s what it was, and that’s what it is like for me. I may be minus a kid from her, but some days I feel like I’ve got a house full. Some days when I can’t take a step without falling all over my offspring, or when I can’t find a moment to pee alone much less just think for a minute, it’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting, and it’s frustrating. And I guess Momma said they’re be days like that. Days where I just wanted to run away and not turn back.
Today my three year old started bawling because I said I wanted to take a “Mommy vacation with no kids!” She cried, “I’ll miss you Mommy!” I even yelled at the dog to shut-up, and when she looked at me with that pitiful, sheepish grin I felt terrible. Momma told me about this part.
But she told me something else too. She told me I would never know love until I loved my child. She said I’d never understand the bond until I held my little ones in my lap and stroked their hair. She made sure she told me about that.
I think back on the times where I knew she was tired and frustrated. I think back to my teenage angst and “whatever’s” while my little sister ran around on the ceiling coloring the fan with Sharpie markers and singing songs from Disney’s Aladdin at the top of her lungs. Over and over.
Sure I remember her getting flustered, mad, whatever you want to call it. But mostly I remember her smiling. I remember her holding a fourteen year old me in her lap like I was still little. I remember her singing along with the Disney soundtrack. I remember her decorating their rooms in each one’s favorite character and helping me with the science fair.
I remember realizing even then that being a mom was hard, but that it was somehow okay. She never told me it would be easy, but she did tell me it would be worth it. And she was right. So I can look past all the other stuff we missed out on talking about. She nailed down the big stuff just in time.