At first disoriented, then reluctant, I wake from a deep sleep …
Resentment at first creeps in, followed by a desire to ignore the inevitable waking for as long as possible … reluctance at being inconvenienced rises up in me along with his cry.
But then, ah then, I see his face in the shadow of the moonlit window by our bed … He smiles.
And so I unwrap him from the swaddling blankets and pull him close. I cradle my baby, his little fists grabbing at my shirt, my hair, as he snuggles in and nurses.
Holding on to me, holding on to what he knows he can trust in the shadows. What can nurture him, protect and provide for him.
For he is so young, so very little. The world stretches out wide before him, vast and unknown. But nestled in the crook of my arm, settled against my heartbeat, he nods back to sleep, milk drunk and happy.
Soon he will be moving away from me. Crawling. Walking. Running.
I hold him tighter, the shadows about me, too.
For I know in what seems like the blink of an eye, he will be tumbling out the door like a lopsided turtle with a Spiderman backpack bigger than him. And then he will be stuffing athletic gear into his gym bag for those after school activities. And then he will be piling books and laptop and mounds of clothes into the car, waving through glass as he leaves for college. And then he will be folding shirts for that business trip, or packing his belongings for that adventure far, far away. Or tucking her things among his in the wedding gift of new luggage. Then children, my grandchildren, impatiently tugging at his arm that it is time to go.
It seems only a short time after we are born, once we move away from the immediate dependency, we keep on moving … testing our independence, looking for our own way to be in the world.
Life consists of learning how to live without our mothers.
But do we? Ever?
A few weeks ago, my mother suffered a heart attack. Fortunately it was not fatal, though a way of life died when it happened.
In terms of my dad, I had grown self sufficient long ago. And I since returned to him through grace. Anger is wearying and forgiveness gifts the giver.
But my mom –she’s always been there. We have always been close. So close, that as we grow older now, and especially as she ages, I caught myself inventing ways to be irritated with her so as to mask the pain of facing the inevitable: that the day when I would lose her was growing closer, too.
Perhaps if I could be frustrated with her a bit more often, if I could be demanding or judgmental, then it wouldn’t sting so badly when she was no longer there.
But it doesn’t work that way.
And so I gave up that form of anger, too.
No wonder Jesus at the height of his agony on the cross asks his best friend to look after his mother.
That Sunday seemed like any other. The same day of the week she was born. We went to church then stopped by to visit grandma. The children crayoned pictures to mosaic her refrigerator after lunch. Grandma laughed and held the baby. We chatted and I tidied as I glanced at the time, aware of my to-do list for later that day.
Your life is full of a million distractions, it passes in a blur of responsibilities and errands and tasks. There are groceries to get and bills to pay and messes to mop up and things to put away … and then all of the sudden a loved one drops to the ground, or breaks without bending, or bleeds without stopping, or stops without breathing … and the merry-go-round freezes, jolts to a halt … and the ride that giddily took you along, is suddenly over. You stand there, in the icy wind, palms open with your ticket spent. The painted horses that once seemed so beautiful, glinting in the summer sun, now stare at you with gargoyle features. And you notice, now, how the paint is chipped, the poles, rusted.
So you look away, tired of the ride.
And all the small talk. Years and years and years of it. Small talk is okay when the really big things are understood. And sometimes talking about the weather is so much more than talking about the weather. But when the unsaid things hold a glorious weight, what to do then?
How to grieve that safe space from which we came, that bright body to which we clung?
A mother is the only person we lose twice over. Whom we must reject to grow, and then whom we still dance in circles around for acceptance and affirmation but it is such a silly show, for she has loved us all along, and nothing can undo that love, knotted tight since conception, so that the pain that twists heart sinews most is that of the pieta.
Each of us come from such sycophantic beginnings. By embodying Emmanuel, God takes this first form as a baby, too. He, Author of All, Giver of All, chooses the parasitic path that marks each of our entrances into this world. First, it is her body we need. Her blood and breath and, soon after, her milk, and soon after that, and always, her discernment. We need her about and around us. The cord is cut, but a golden thread somehow remains, binding us through generations to the beginning of time. A thread so strong that even if we are adopted, we seek its replacement in another, or long to find it, if even to hold it for a moment then set it aside.
I spend days and nights – I cannot tell which, from within the labyrinth of hospital walls – curled up next to her cot. Fetus positioned in stiff hospital chairs, awaiting test results, doctor’s rounds.
Like Theseus, I need the thread to find my way out. But this, of course, would again lead me away from her. Would cause me to abandon her to the monsters. To follow that same golden thread that she would give her life – that she has given her life – for me to have.
She returns home and I return to my tasks: answer emails, teach students, talk to groups and individuals, take phone calls and make deadlines. I write polite lines, nod simple yeses. I apologize for the delays, the interruptions.
The entire time I want to scream past the clotted grief in my throat: How to live without our mothers?
My own children approach, needing coats done up, mittens sought after, snacks and stories and forms filled out.
How to teach them how to live without me?
I look at them, at each one of their precious faces.
Interruptions into the really real.
That’s what they are. That’s what these are. Holy hiccoughs, if you will. God’s way of getting our attention, of inserting the mystery and majesty of Himself into my petty, limited list of to-do’s. “Interruptions” that came into my otherwise semblance of selfish control. Like the heart attack rattling into full focus all my mother has meant, and means, to me. Like the other “interruptions” that deter you from getting all you’d like done, in your own little highly controlled way. Interruptions that don’t allow you to coast along. Interruptions that throw in your face how you actually live with such high expectations of how life should be perfect even though we are sinners. That somehow it’s not crazily gracious enough in this world knitted together by various self-wills that “afflictions” like illness, suffering, and despair are things by which we mark the default rather than the norm.
What is the most precious gift I can give these children? What is it that I want settled between my mom and me, when the chips are down and our time is up?
What holds me together in the hospital room? Makes me want to give everything – including my own life – to see my mother again in heaven? What is it I admire so in a husband who continuously puts my needs before his, and displays joy in doing so? What makes me see that the interruptions are actually ways in which He gets our attention, in spite of us?
In the Gospel according to John (14:1-7), Jesus comforts his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Yes, through the interruptions we get glimpses.
This is what I want to tell my mother. Give my children. Attest to others through my own life:
Jesus interrupts this spinning and fallen world with the enduring, ever-loving steadfastness of His grace and truth.
And regardless of whether you are irritated or overjoyed by the interruption … pay attention to God’s attention and, from now on, be transformed.
Lover of God, happy wife, mama to 4, writer, teacher, author of
I often tell people “you’re never old enough to lose your mother,” because as you so beautifully put it, that is the primary relationship and, usually, the one person who loves without end.
Blessings to you for a beautiful way of seeing so clearly your mother is the one person you leave twice.
This double leaving is so bitter sweet, isn’t it, Michelle? I appreciate you being here.
Beautiful. This resonates so much with my thoughts over losing my dad this past month, too. Although his is not the body I grew in, nor the one who was up with me during the sleepless nights, or whose body nourished me as I grew, he is the one who really nurtured my faith and trust in God throughout my life. The one who instilled in me some of the most important life skills I could have. The one with whom I always had an understanding, even if we didn’t talk about it. And that change you noted, where a way of life ends, that was so hard for me as I worked to accept his inevitable death. I think I may have been more upset about it than he was. Just realizing all that he would never do again, say again, feel again. The fishing trips with grandchildren, campfires with marshmallows, his love for farming, even his voice failed him the last 3 or 4 months he was alive and he could only speak through whispers. All those things he loved and then had to say goodbye to. Even though I was with him often in his last months and weeks, I still wish I could have afforded to interrupt life a little more, and just BE there a little more than I was. Know we are praying with you and for you all as you work to embrace the changes your mom is facing. It is hard to lose the parent you were close to, realizing that they will take with them the comfort that you always had in calling them “home.”
My dear, dear friend. Oh there is so much to say to you, as always, but especially now. Thank you for sharing in my concern for my mom in the recent and raw loss of your own dad. I love you so. Your thoughts here are so identifiable. But you should also have peace. You loved your Dad hard and well and wonderfully, and he knew that. And your love endures as he does now in Christ. You are one of the most amazing people I know.
I actually do have a lot of peace. Of course, feelings fluctuate daily, but like with anything in life — parenting, teaching, friendships, prayer — the feeling that you could/should have done better is always there. However, where he is now, I know that none of it even matters any more, and he knows I did the best I could with what I had. In some ways, it’s almost comforting to have the walls that life on earth builds be torn down. I think that I almost feel more free to tell him the things I would like to now than I did in the past. And, as he always said, he can pray for all of us so much more perfectly where he is now than he could while here. Of course, I miss his presence here, but also take a lot of peace in knowing that all is goodness and beauty where his soul now rests and I know he is waiting for us all to one day join him there.
This is so beautiful!
Thank you, Jo. My mom is beautiful, so I can only hope to veer near that a little :)
The “holy hiccoughs” paragraph was a special blessing. You nailed me with the “expectation that life should be perfect” statement.
It strikes me so clearly at times, Katy – the brashness of our expectations. And yet how easily I slide back into them again … it’s good to have fellowship with folks like you.
Caro, this resonates so much for so many reasons. I’ve had a few interruptions the last couple of months and I know they will continue to happen regularly. I’m bookmarking it so I can refer to it as needed.
I’m honoured to be bookmarked friend! ;) I’m learning that “interruptions” can be where the whole story lies, actually.
This is beautiful, Caro. Thank you.
Thank you, dear Pilar. I miss you and love you.
Dear Carolyn,
It’s been such an age since I’ve been to visit. But I do think of you more oft than you know, especially when I see your Oxford book nestled in my bookshelf, patiently waiting for me to read it all over again. And I will…when the time is ripe.
I so was moved by your posting today… Although there are many places that made me pause, it was this paragraph that really caught hold this snowy morning:
“And all the small talk. Years and years and years of it. Small talk is okay when the really big things are understood. And sometimes talking about the weather is so much more than talking about the weather. But when the unsaid things hold a glorious weight, what to do then?”
Small talk.. you say it perfectly when you say that small talk is okay when the really big things are understood. I find small talk comforting in those times, but it becomes agitating when there are weightier issues that remain unsaid, unresolved.
On the other hand, ‘small’ talk can oft fix a great many things too: I’m sorry. Forgive me? I love you. Wanna go for a walk and hold hands?
Wishing you and your little one Blessed Best…
Brenda
Thank you Brenda for connecting here when I have been so woefully behind on things. you are a gracious friend indeed :) Thank you for the beautiful thoughts, prayers, wishes … your thoughts on small talk are so true. Yes. Thank you.
A good post, and a hard post to read so far from my family. But I was reminded and so glad that you recently moved back to be with yours! Now I’m looking forward to “second christmas” in early January even more. Grandparents just have that special something, and I am so grateful my parents are able to visit twice a year. I saw little of my father’s parents, as they were halfway across the country and very old, and I never met my mother’s parents because they both had died before she was 21. I remember well being three or four and my mother, young and overwhealmed by wife and motherhood, crying on her bed that she wanted her mother.
So I feel the gratitude and the bittersweet…I want my mother, and she is coming, but it will not always be so.
Thank you for sharing here, Holly. What a poignant memory! I, too, remember a friend saying a similar thing in college – a very independent, fiery young woman I admired but who still crawled into bed and told me how she cried, “Mommy, I am little.” It still stays with me. Our mothers love us out of littleness; what a gift to grow with them.
Dear Carolyn,
you really can say what many of us feel deep inside, with just the exactly right words. To read your thoughts puts my feelings in much better perspective and leads me to do what I must : attend to
God’s attention and be transformed.
Blessings and love,
Annemarie
Thank you Annemarie. I find it so hard to attend, even harder to transform. But it is the effect of our faith, its result, and it does speak even louder than our words – it is the right word.
This is writing straight from your heart, Carolyn, and I am so glad to see it. Even though the circumstances that triggered this are hard ones, I am grateful on so many levels: I see YOU through these words, not the academician. I feel your struggle and I resonate with it – my own mother is fading away to dementia and our relationship is a complex and convoluted one in many ways, but all of what you cherish about your mother? I cherish those same things about mine. Trust that she has heard your heart, Caro. Trust that God has her safely held. Trust that the ‘small talk’ will be exactly where your feet find the gospel road into her heart. It shall be well. Thank you so much for this. Praying for you and for her and for all of you as you navigate this new territory on so many different levels right now.
On a completely different note – you mentioned ‘students.’ Are you teaching somewhere? I don’t remember that teaching was a part of the package when you moved back to Canada. Tell me more…. Love to you all, my friend.
You are one of the wisest women I know. Period. See why I love you so? :) As for teaching, I’m not at a regular campus, but I have been teaching retreats, guest lecturing etc here and there and enjoying that connection immensely. Hope to catch up more soon, dear friend xo
Dear Carolyn, Providentially, I stumbled across the YouTube video of your interview. I was greatly moved by it and ordered and read the memoir of your journey to faith. What an honest and moving read! You ask questions that most of us who’ve grown up in a Christian home often have not asked, but should. I’ve since shared the video and book with many others. Your work resonated with me particularly because I too am a Western alumnus as well as a, now emeritus, professor of law at Western. I find your blog also uplifting and applaud you for weaving your Christian faith into your literary offerings, as well as in your more personal stories Blessings on you and your family.
Wow, Albert, I’m so touched you wrote! And that we are in the same backyard. I hope we can get in better touch. I’d love to get to know you better! Thank you for your kind encouragement. Blessings back, new friend.
I should like that very much. I now live in Burlington ON. Are you back in London ON? I do get back there from time to time. Albert (albert.oosterhoff@gmail.com)
I have lots of friends in Burlington! But we are back in London. Nice to be home for now at least :) I will drop you a note. Thanks!
Dear Carolyn,
Like so many others that have read your memoir, we feel “we know you”. This truly was your heart exposed to us as only pain can reveal.But what came through was the mixture of pain and joy. Only the One Who loves us with an everlasting love can do that in our lives. I loved what your friend said about the ‘small talk’ being the feet that brings the gospel road into your family’s lives.
Just as your mother sewed good seeds into you and your siblings lives that made you the persons you became, you now have sewn good seeds back into her life that will be nurtured in this time of vulnerability. I will be praying for you.
Thank you, Elise, more than you know.
Your intense reflection brings to mind a line that has haunted me since first reading it twenty years ago….? Maybe from a Randall Jarrell poem….?
“The way life interupts life, is life….”
Hope you are as well as possible ~
beautiful line. Thanks friend!