A Mother's Love

Today is 09/09/09, and it also would have been my mom's 58th birthday. Maybe it's all the hormones, but this year I find myself missing her more than usual. Five years ago, I thought getting married without my mother there would be the hardest thing I'd ever do. Boy was I wrong. Having a baby without my mother here is by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do without her. There's been so many times during my pregnancy that I've wanted to ask my mom, "did this happen to you?" I can't even begin to tell you how many of my friends have told me that they never could have gotten through the first few weeks with a newborn without their mothers, or that the most important thing to have after coming home from the hospital was the help of their mothers. It's not that I don't have a good support network. I have a loving husband, wonderful friends, and a caring mother-in-law. It's just that sometimes you want your own mother. There's not a single person in the world that can take her place. We all know that feeling you have when you're sick, and you just want your mom there to make you feel better.

Luckily when I grew up my mom used to tell me lots of stories. She told me about her pregnancy with me and about my birth. She said she had such an easy labor and delivery with me, that she could "have had another baby the next day". I guess the ease ended there, because she also said I was quite a terror as an infant. Even back then I wouldn't sleep. She said I was afraid that I was going to miss something. I didn't want to go to anyone but my mom. I'd scream my head off if she tried to hand me off to anyone else. I guess I just knew what I wanted. While it's nice to know all those things, there is so much more I want to know.

It's hard for me to imagine my mother as a grandmother. I can only see her as that beautiful, young, active, person in the prime of her life. Not that I don't think she would make a wonderful grandmother. I know she would. In fact she would be fantastic, especially to a little boy. She'd teach him about nature, and the outdoors, and do all the things she used to do with my brothers and me. She'd take him into the woods to catch tadpoles and caterpillars and wait for them to change into frogs and butterflies. They'd go on bike rides and hikes and to museums and have all kinds of adventures. She'd teach him how to fix things like her dad taught her, and even how to bake. On those quiet lazy days she'd teach him about her love of books, math and science. Their time together would never be boring, just like our's never was.

For me, losing my mother has been like the worst broken heart you can ever imagine. Except it's one that never heals. You might mend the break slightly, and learn to live beside it, but there will always be that hole right in the middle that never fully goes away. My hope is that becoming a mother myself, and giving my own child some of the love my mother gave to me, will help mend the break ever so slightly.