I remember the night I knew you were on the way, Amanda. I cussed out your Dad for predicting you'd be born on his birthday - I wasn't ready yet, and I was hoping for St. Paddy's Day instead. The bedroom wasn't painted yet.
I remember watching the sunrise over downtown Denver in the birthing room during the short pauses between contractions, and I remember how my heart swelled up and filled with love when they told me "It's a girl" - and all I could say was "Amanda!!" I was so unbelieveably glad you were there, that you were a girl, that you were alive and healthy.
I remember the first night that you were home - how the bedroom smelled so very bad from the fresh paint, and so I slept on the sofa next to your bassinette - and you cried until I picked you up, and you fell asleep on my chest.
According to you I've been a shit Mom, and so I'll accept that. Nobody but you can make that call, since nobody else has me for a Mom. All I can say is that I did the best that *I* can do. I'm sorry it wasn't enough, or it wasn't right. Life sucks that way sometimes, however, and even when we do our best, sometimes it isn't enough.
I still love you just as much as I ever did that morning 25 years ago.
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Mommy
You left us a little over a year ago, and I miss you more every day you're gone. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to pick up the phone and tell you about something, only to have to stop and relive the pain for a few seconds again. You were the glue that held things together in many ways, and now that I see them flying apart it becomes ever more apparent.
You gave up your career for us, you gave up your independence for family. I love you dearly, Mom. I miss you very much.
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Gramma:
Some day I'll be with you forever. I still feel as if you were the only person in my life who has ever loved me "unconditionally" - without reservation. I never felt "adopted" around you, you were my gramma forever. I remember your kitchen and the apple coffeecakes, your basement with the secret toy stash, your garden with all the sweet allyssum, your diningroom with your (now my) silver tea set, your livingroom with the quilting frame set up in it, the front screen-porch with the boxes and boxes of homemade christmas cookies.
Gramma, I still cry when I think about you. I love you so much. I will never, ever, forget. Some day I'll be with you forever, and with the grampa I never knew.
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In honor of "Mother's Day", I planted out the rest of my flowers in the front, including the 6 pink and white geraniums. I can't plant sweet allyssum without getting maudlin and crying, so I don't. It was always for Mothers Day we would go to the garden shop and buy a flat of petunias or something for Mom to plant around the house. Garden flowers always feel like "Mothers Day" to me.
This morning they all looked happy and fairly healthy. There was an ant crawling around on the peony. (A good thing)
616 days
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3 comments:
I'm sure you did the best you could as a mother. Kids just often don't appreciate what is done for them and Society gives them too many wants and needs.
Don't worry about it. Hugs
Glad you made it safe and sound and into loving arms.
Some kids just take a lot longer to grow up and start acting like adults than do others. My sister's boy (one of three) was over 30 before he got his head out, dropped the drugs, got a job, and started paying his mother back for all the money he had either borrowed and never repaid, or had dumped on her because she was dumb enough to trust he would never be so irresponsible.
When kids are terribly immature they tend to look for someone to blame for the bad things their dumb behavior brought on themselves, and they tend to exaggerate just how "bad" they had it growing up.
I'm not saying you were a perfect Mom. None of us can say that. Like BBC says, however, you honestly did the best with what you had. At some point I think most kids realize that and forgive the bad and acknowledge the good. Unfortunately they have to grow up a lot first to reach the point where they aren't in a self-righteous snit and can face their own shortcomings. For some that takes a long time.
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