As I get older, I’m constantly amazed by how long
ago things that seem recent actually happened.
The event itself doesn’t matter: my mind is equally
blown when I consider Bill Clinton became president twenty years ago as it is
when I realize Right Said Fred released their first album the same year.
I don’t know where I was when I heard Kurt Cobain
died, but I can remember with precision that I was driving to Ace Hardware in
Iowa when I heard that he had been dead twenty years, because it didn't seem
possible and made me feel old.
I didn't feel the same disbelief last Saturday,
which was the twentieth anniversary of my mother's death. It feels like half my
life since I saw my mom, so it came as no shock that it is.
I’ve gone through many episodes in my life since
she died. I graduated from university, started a career, lived in several
states and countries, went to graduate school, got married and divorced, had
two children. I’ve navigated my 20s and most of my 30s without my mom, and I
think she’d be mostly pleased with how it’s all worked out.
From birth children begin the gradual process of
surviving without their mothers. That’s the point of parenting: to help them
grow into self-sufficient people who can live in and contribute to society.
Parents only get so many years to prepare their kids before letting them go,
and we are relaxing our grip slowly every day. For me, that means allowing my
son to drink from a grown-up cup even though I know he’ll likely spill all over
himself.
It is not my job to keep my children from making
mistakes. They have a right to their mistakes. It’s my job to help them develop
the intellectual and emotional capacity to recover and learn from the mistakes
they will make. But it's tricky when progress looks so precarious. It is not
easy to allow my son to walk down our steep, dangerous Dutch stairs by himself
(with me a step away, of course) while resisting a primal urge to grab him in a
bear hug and carry him.
I can appreciate how difficult this gets when the
stakes are higher. The first time my mother agreed to let me drive with her as
a passenger, she – not a drinker – had to down a digestive Ouzo at the
restaurant we were in to get the courage to do it. She spent the duration of
the journey in the backseat, singing the Wolfe Tones’ “We’re on the One Road” and
trying not to panic.
My mother had far less time than many parents to
make an imprint on her children, to teach us what she wanted us to know, and to
see reassuring signs that we were going to be okay. When it was clear she was
going to die, she told me if there were windows in heaven she'd be looking down
at me. I suggested maybe we could agree to a schedule, as there may be some
things she didn't need to see.
Being a parent makes you worry. Before having kids,
I wasn't really afraid of much. Now I feel more vulnerable, because I have so
much more to lose. I worry about something happening to them, but I also worry
about something happening to me. After focusing for years on my own loss, now
that I’m a parent I think about having to leave my kids – she was only eight
years older than I am now – and I grieve more for everything she missed out on
than I do for what I don’t have.
My mom taught by example. She had a wonderful
optimism, and never lingered in anger or sadness or resentment. She told me
once that if she was scolded as a child, she would just picture herself in her
mind riding her bike really fast on a summer day, and imagining that if she had
very long hair, it'd be blowing in the wind. She never lost that ability to
thwart negativity, even when sick.
She wanted my sister and me to feel good about
ourselves, to act with integrity no matter what we did. When I was cast as the
cow in the nativity pageant as a child, rather than landing the coveted role of
Mary, she assured me that the cow was very important, because it breathed on
baby Jesus and kept him warm.
She was assertive but not pushy or defensive. She
was principled but not judgmental or exclusionary. She had a fantastic sense of
humor, threw better parties than her teenage daughters, and, being roguish
herself, forgave my teenage trespasses – even appreciated them, if I could make
her laugh.
I had a great mom who managed to teach me a lot in
a short time. I know how to laugh at and forgive myself. I know how to feel
comfortable in my own skin. I believe people are basically good, in spite of
being flawed. More so than anything you can read in a What to Expect manual, my
mom helped my sister and me understand how to live good lives, just by being
ourselves. I can only hope to do the same for my kids.
