In case you haven’t figured this out, having a baby makes you think….ALOT…and it makes you think differently about everything. Some things are just instantly thought about differently, like going to the store, but I have found some things come to light in their own time and in their own way. One item that I have found myself thinking about a lot more than I use to was mortality.
I knew, know and now really know that even the thought of your child dying will drive daggers into the heart of any parent. I knew this before having Connor but now I feel it. Just the thought is amazingly painful. I am not going to dwell on this because it is not the point of this blog and it really is just too painful to even contemplate or discuss.
For those of you who don’t know, my mother died when I was very young. Six years old to be exact. An age where you aware of the world around you, but don’t really understand it. Most of the time when I tell people this they say they are sorry to hear that, to which I reply ‘it’s ok, my dad reconnected with a past love and they ended up getting married not long after my mom died. My stepmother is great and she raised me’. This response usually gets past the awkward moment and the conversation moves on.
My response is not untrue. The woman I loving call ‘mom’ did raise me and loves me as much as she possibly can. And being a parent now I have to give her some serious props, she had just finished raising my sister (and by finished I mean my sis turned 18) and was now looking at doing it all over again. I don’t think anyone in their right mind wants to go through the teenage years with a girl twice. But she did and her and my father created a pretty darn good life for me. So good that I spent little to no time ever really thinking about the woman who gave birth to me. Who changed my diapers, wiped my baby tears, rocked me to sleep, toilet trained me, yeah, that woman.
I am sure part of the reason I didn’t think much about her was my age. Teenagers and young adults just don’t have the emotional capacity to think about much of anything except themselves. Sad, but true. The other reason I now think, know, I chose not to think about her much was because I was pissed.
I have never really thought of my birth mother in a good way. She drank and smoked…alot…and although she never did anything to hurt me, even at my young age I knew she had a problem. I told myself if she HAD lived my life would have been much different and chances are I would not be as successful and well-rounded as I am today. Maybe it’s true, maybe not, my crystal ball has been broken for some time now. But what really made me mad is that she died. She didn’t take care of herself or love herself enough to change her life style to stick around for me. She died of cancer, and from what I remember it was not her first scare with cancer so she must have known she needed to change things, right? So for the past 25 years I have been flat-out mad at her, not giving her an ounce of the respect she deserves for being my mom for the first 6 years of my life. I have lost touch with her side of the family and really truly just ‘moved on’.
Well, maybe not. The thought of not being a part of Connor’s life hurts. Just the idea of not seeing him make his first friend, play his first football game, go to his first dance is painful in a way that is only trumped by the thought of something happening to him. Having to hope that people will tell him about me, and for him to have to see my face in pictures, not every day when he wakes up is awful. And it has made me think of my mother in a whole new way.
I keep going back to one of the last memories I have of her, sitting in her hospital bed in the middle of our living room (because her time was ending and hospice had let her come home). I was engrossed in some cartoon TV show and the nurse, or someone said, ‘Tiffany, I think your mom is trying to say something to you’. I remember brushing it off and barely turning around to see what she was saying and the someone saying ‘she is telling you she loves you’. I probably got up to give her a hug, or tossed a ‘I love you, too’ over my shoulder, having no idea until now what she was really saying. She was saying ‘I love you and I will miss you’. She knew, as she laid there watching me, that my life would go on without her. That she wasn’t going to see my go to prom, or get married, or have my first baby. I honestly don’t remember how long she was home before she died, it seemed like months, but I bet for her it was a lifetime. Every day being a little more painful than the last knowing that she wasn’t going to get the chance to be a part of my life anymore. Yet choosing to fight the cancer that was eating away at her body for just one more day with me.
Mom, I’m not mad any more. You may not have been perfect, but you loved me with everything you had. I never doubted that, but now I understand it. I’m sorry it took me so long to recognize you and although I will never put aside the love and feelings I have for the woman who raised me, I won’t put your memory aside any longer either. I’m sorry I did for so long but will make up for all the lost time by remembering the good stuff. Thank you for looking down on me from heaven and always being in my heart.
I guess I’m lucky, I have 2 moms to love me, one is just doing it from far, far away.
