on mothering

Mother’s Day is always bittersweet for me. It’s sweet because I have a wonderful, loving mother, and because I have three amazing (young adult) children. Becoming a mother burst my heart wide – it was truly the most dangerous thing I have ever done. Immediately my heart was outside my body. I could not protect it in the way I could before. It had arms and legs, and once it started walking, any sense of control was a thing of the past.

But this day holds bitterness in it too. An awareness that all the sappy Hallmark cards are lies – at least when given to me. I am painfully aware of the ways I have failed as a mother. I witness every day the hurt I have passed on to my children. This hurt has been caused by a disability on my part.

As a trauma survivor – and one who only became aware of the past during my children’s formative years – I lack the ability to connect; to truly communicate love to them; to pursue them with adoration the way every child deserves. The problem isn’t in how I feel. I feel mountains of love for them. I adore them with my entire being. But my “communicator” is broken – that part of me that would transmit mother-love to my children. The worst part is that I didn’t even know it. So to them I just seemed busy, pre-occupied. Everything else in my life appeared to them to be more important than our relationship. They believed they had second place in my heart. Or tenth place.

When I disconnected from myself in childhood, as a protection against the sexual abuse, parts of me were lost. One of the most important parts of my healing journey is going around retrieving what has been lost. The ability to connect well with those I love most – especially those who were an extension of my very self – was lost for a long time. And its absence created much damage. And now that I am aware of that damage, I have another thing to grieve. I grieve the loss of close relationship with my children. I grieve the loss of the ability to communicate my love for them – to pursue them as a healthy mother naturally does.

But sitting in grief is only productive for a time. And then I must move forward. I need to teach myself how to transmit the love that bubbles in my soul, especially to my children. I need to turn my back on the guilt that seeks to paralyze me and step bravely into learning this new skill. Because guilt does indeed paralyze.

Yesterday I watched an episode of a show on Netflix. It was the finale of the 2nd season of New Amsterdam. In this episode, a couple receives the devastating news that their young son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a gene mutation inherited from his mother. Much of the episode follows this mother as she wrestles with the guilt of “having done this to her son.” Of course, from the outside we can see she did not do this. It happened. She bears no guilt. But mothers are wired for guilt. We find it everywhere, amplify it, and carry it as though doing so will save our children. It does not. As I watched this young mom on TV naming her worst fear – that she had caused her son’s great hurt, my chest tightened. Salty tears dripped from my eyes. And an ability to divest myself of the guilt-burden came upon me. My situation is similar to that mom’s. I didn’t purposefully deny my children the connection they so needed. It happened. And I might do well to be like the mom on the show, who by the end of the episode comes to believe she still has something to give to her son. She realizes his life is better with her in it, with or without the painful diagnosis.

This Mother’s Day I begin a regimen of training. I will attempt to learn to “Mom” the way my new Garmin watch is teaching me to run. And actually it will be very similar to learning to run. I have exercise-induced asthma. Because of this all my running has to be modified. I run only until I feel my chest tighten and the wheezing start. Then I walk until it subsides. But then, I run again. In this way, I am strengthening my lungs, my muscles, and my heart. Eventually I will be able to run more than I can imagine now. But I will never run like someone without asthma. That cannot be my goal. Enjoying running and strengthening my body must be my goal. And my mothering goal must be like that too. Learning to communicate that powerful mother-love that exists inside will be slow and inglorious at times. If I compare myself to other mothers, I will certainly give up. But if my goal is to enjoy the process, I will surpass even my own hopes and dreams.

So when you wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, I will try to receive it with gratitude. Gratitude that I get to be a mother. Gratitude that I still have something to give. And I promise to turn my back on the feeling that I am an imposter and not a good mother. Because that belief adds intention to something that simply “happened.” It is untrue and has crippled me for long enough.