We all know what moms are supposed to be: patient, kind and loving. They are supposed to know how to sing lullabies and kiss boo-boo’s. They are supposed to cook and clean and decorate cupcakes like it’s nobody’s business. They are supposed to work hard at home and at work and be good friends, good daughters, good sisters and aunts. But most importantly?
They are supposed to be there.
Moms should be there when it counts: at our sporting events and school plays. For our first kiss, first job, first marriage. Moms should be there when you become a mom and join the ‘hood. They should be there for every baby thereafter. Moms should be there forever.
But what happens when they’re not? What do you do when they leave or get sick or die? What do you do when they are there but disconnected, in a “lights are on but nobody’s there” way? What do you do when they are there but you wish they weren’t? And then Mother’s Day comes along, with its high expectations for a Norman Rockwell (or should I say Normal Rockwell) day?
My mom died on March 18, 1994. It was six months before my wedding. By the time her cancer was diagnosed, it was too late, but we didn’t know it then, my sister, father and I. We didn’t have Google or WebMD then; hope was all we had. But that was a long time ago, right? I’m done with that, right? With two kids of my own now, Mother’s Day should be a snap. Right??
But what I am learning is that when there are all these things a mom is supposed to be, you are never “done” coming to terms with the loss of a parent. Your grief merely changes shape over time. My mom and I did not always see eye to eye. She died before I really came into my own as a person, so I like to think that we would have become friends. But I’ll never really know.
I am (mostly) OK with this. I don’t cry anymore on Mother’s Day. I don’t choke up anymore when I see a mother and daughter walking in the mall who look so alike there is no doubt they are mother/daughter. But seeing my older sister being a grandparent to her grandchildren, I feel the sadness and loss of what my children will never experience. When my elderly neighbors invite their adult children and the grandchildren over for Sunday dinner, there is something about the sight of the grey-haired couple standing on their porch stoop, waving goodbye as everyone backs out of the driveway…it’s the sting of what will never be.
I know what a mom is supposed to be. But here’s what my mom really was: she insisted on family dinners every Sunday. She wore her hair in a beehive long after it ceased being fashionable (it was once, right?). She never got her hair wet in the pool and she could sew a pantsuit like it was nobody’s business. She made the best homemade chicken noodle soup. She loved McDonald’s but maybe Long John Silver’s a little more. She read People magazine and The Star and Enquirer. She loved Elizabeth Taylor. She told me I could go to college someday, even though no one else in our family, herself included, had ever gone.
When she died, I didn’t know how to be a wife or mother. She was a buffer between being a kid and a grown-up and when she died, it was like the earth cracked open and I lost everything, myself included. But here’s the thing: I got stronger, too.
I learned how to decorate a house and order window treatments. I never learned how to sew but I did learn that a tailor and a dry cleaner work even better. I learned how to cook for 20 and make pie crusts from scratch. I learned that life is short and tomorrow doesn’t always come, so I finished my grad school application and got that MFA I’d been thinking about. I learned that if I wanted something, I was going to have to get it for myself. And while I missed Mom’s stamp of approval on my life, there is something liberating about charting your own course, free of someone else’s idea of what it should look like. My life felt more real because I had more at stake and no one to blame but me if I failed.
I remember after one particularly bitter fight when I was about 12, my mom gave me a long look and said, “You’re going to write about this some day, aren’t you?” I gave her my best eye roll and a snotty ‘tween look, but deep down, we both knew she was right. Dammit.
Miss you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.
Drinking and decorating: The anti-Martha-Stewart-Pottery-Barn Christmas tree
Published December 17, 2010 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creative Parenting , Essays , Fun , Kids , Social Commentary 8 CommentsTags: authentic holidays, Christmas decorating, holiday blues, holiday decorating, holiday trees, Holidays, missing family for the holidays, real holiday spirit, true holidays
This was not Christmas as I’d known it growing up. Holidays were BIG at my house and consisted of cleaning, cooking, shopping, baking, more cleaning, coordinating outfits, practicing Christmas songs on the organ (I know, right???), wrapping, more cleaning, making cookies, making pierogis, and more cleaning. My mother spent days arranging decorations in the house; she was Martha Stewart before anyone had heard of Martha Stewart.
I was never permitted to touch the “good” tree upstairs, but I was allowed to decorate the “other” tree in the basement. I call it the consolation tree. (Usually my mother would come down later and rearrange all the ornaments again anyway.) Secretly I fear I’ll never be good enough to put together the good tree.
See, that’s why the holidays are tricky. There’s all this pressure to be merry and buy stuff but it’s also fraught with memories, good and bad. Sometime after Halloween, I remember all the old family holiday parties and every year, there are a few less faces around the table. Some years are harder than others. That year in our new old house was a hard one.
So I let my kids decorate the good–the only–tree all by themselves that year, and it was so much fun we decided to make it a new Miles family tradition. We play holiday music. I make hot chocolate. The kids dance around all hopped up on sugar cookies. They make me wear the Santa hat with the reindeer antlers. But they take their job very seriously. Each ornament is placed with great care and consideration, although I have the most random, crazy mix of ornaments you could possibly imagine. It’s enough to make Martha’s toes curl.
The reactions to their decorating efforts are usually…not good. People walk in, look at the tree and say things like, “Oh my!” or “Were you drinking and decorating again?” It makes me wonder sometimes how my mom felt when she stood back, alone, to survey her tree and the trimmings and the perfection. I would ask, but her last Christmas was 16 years ago. If she could see my tree now, she would immediately shoo me out of the room so she could fix it. I would let her do it, but only if she wore the Santa hat with the reindeer antlers, which she’d hate because it would mess up her hair.
So yeah, my tree looks disheveled and a little tipsy, kind of like me after the neighborhood holiday party–OK, all of the neighborhood parties–and the complete opposite of any tree ever featured in Pottery Barn.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.