Wednesday January 5, 2011

This year has started more peacefully than most, we are all well, nobody is pregnant & for the most part my kids are staying out of trouble. BUT I always have had to get past today~The anniversary of my Mothers death. Always a reflective day for me...what kind of relationship would we have, what would she think of my family, would she be proud of me? In my "happily ever after" fantasy she would think I am wonderful. We would talk a few times a week, she would adore my children & send them special things in the mail. We would take Mother/Daughter getaway trips & share our secrets and laugh till we cried. Do women really do those things with their Mother's??? I will never know and by some sort of twist of fate I was handed 4 baby boys to love and nurture to the best of my ability. Now there is a sentence to ponder during many sleepless nights...The best of my ability~did I really try my best, was/is my best good enough? Can you be a good Mother if you didn't have one? We have to take tests in school, for driving sometimes for a new job...but these babies get handed to us and we are sent on our way. Young and inexperienced, with much growing up of our own left to do. Now I am finally at the age that I can say "If I had to do it all over again"...but while I am smart enough & mature enough to utter that phrase I really don't know what I would change, any change would make today different and I am happy where I am today, but I am not sure my children are. When do we stop feeling responsible for how our children get through a day? What makes some kids give it everything they have & some kids just do enough to get by & some not even that much? And when does it stop being about how they were raised & more about the effort they are putting into themselves. I wish I could ask my Mom. Sometimes I feel like I am putting something together that came without directions and there is no costumer service line to call! Thankfully in the last 5 years I have reconnected with an old high school friend who has seen me through an amazing string of events, that even my extended family did not stand by me through. Without her daily input, advice and support I truly have no idea how we would have survived! I don't know why she stands by me when know one else,including my closest family,would? I am so grateful for her non-judgmental support~I have never had any kind of relationship like this before and I do not know how I got this far without it. No matter what I say or do she does not turn her back on me or say she is too busy too listen.(even when she is)It's like having the sister I never had, except that because she is not my family I never worry that she is there because she has to be or she will walk away because I make her look bad~She is here because she is my friend and having a friend makes days like today easier to get through. My father has still not called, written or emailed. Who really knows if my Mother had lived if we would have had my fantasy relationship or fought like cats and dogs. Nobody really knows why life turns out the way it does~my path was changed on a fateful January day 36 years ago. That day has brought me more pain and sorrow than anyone could ever imagine, but it has also brought me my husband (who I never would have met had my Mother lived) & therefore my children and to this paradise I live in. Would I give it all up to have my mother back...when I have a father who is alive but refuses to be a part of my life. My life has many unanswered questions and yet for the first time I feel more in control and happier than I have been in years. The powerful gift of friendship has given me the confidence I need to get through a day, sometimes even an hour.
" A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
- Arabian Proverb
So I say a little prayer for my Mom on this 36th year in Heaven & I wish for just a moment of clarity in which to hear her wisdom...in my heart I like to think she sent me the person I needed to stand by me in my old age.
My thoughts scattered in this post, the baby distracted me many times, the phone rang and the dog needed to go out~luckily it is MY BLOG and it can wander as my thoughts tend to do. My point was to say that having a friend can make days like today more bearable and having a father who is alive, but won't speak to you is more unbearable than having a Mother who doesn't because she can't.