A Mother's Memories: If only I could go back....

My daughter, just a few weeks old

Several years ago, when my daughter was in her late 20's, I finally managed to put together her baby book (birth through age two). Each day for weeks, I holed up in our home office, cranked up some music, scanned in old photos, and racked my brain trying to remember details from decades ago. Each time, I felt myself being transported back in time to 1980, 1981 and 1982. It was an emotional roller coaster ride full of joy and pain, gratitude and remorse. Each day I shed new tears remembering the precious times my daughter and I had had together, agonizing over remembered mistakes, longing to go back in time to hold her little body again, and wishing I had been paying closer attention to the exact moment she first smiled, when her first tooth came in, when she sat up all by herself. What was the date she took her first steps? Was I even in the room, or had I been at work and only got to hear about it secondhand? 

Anyone who has raised a child and then allows her/himself to reminisce will know what I am talking about. I was so busy living my life that some of these momentous occasions slipped by unmarked on my life's calendar, although I know without a doubt that I celebrated them at the time. But somehow I can't help but feel I didn't give each moment enough attention. Maybe fireworks had been called for and all I had to give was a smile and then, quickly, a look forward to the next stage of development. Why hadn't I taken life slower and appreciated each achievement my daughter made with more awe and wonder? I know the answer to that question and it's complicated. My life as a single mother was complicated back then.

At the end of my scrapbook project I felt both elated and let down. I was glad I had finally produced a baby book for my daughter, but I was also going to miss the emotionally exhausting trek down memory lane each day. There's something a little addicting about the regular stirring of emotions.

Mother: Locked Out. Baby: Home Alone.

When I was in my mid-twenties and my daughter, Emily, was six or seven months old, we lived in an older ranch-style home with my sister, just the three of us. I was a single mom, working part-time, and my sister was a full-time student. There were usually a couple of days a week when I wasn't scheduled to work and my sister was at school, leaving my daughter and I home alone.

Me, with my sweet girl, Emily

One such morning, I put Emily down for her nap and I got ready to hop in the shower. I don't know what drew me outside into our backyard at such a moment, as I was barefoot and had on nothing but an old threadbare, almost see-through bathrobe - maybe I thought I should turn the sprinkler on to water the grass while I was showering, I can't remember - but out I went. The kitchen door that I exited through had a pane of glass in the upper half and a door knob that locked and stayed locked unless the button was twisted to the unlocked position. I was usually pretty diligent about checking to make sure I unlocked the knob before going out, but this particular time the realization that I had neglected to do so occurred to me at the same moment the door swung shut. I grabbed at the knob, but it was too late; it was shut and it was locked. Immediately I started to panic.

Little Em - home alone

This was back in 1980, long before we carried cell phones with us everywhere, long before I had even heard the words 'cell phone' strung together. There I was with no shoes and, to put it mildly, feeling a tad vulnerable in my flimsy bathrobe. Although I knew that I had tightly closed and locked all of the other doors and windows (being the paranoid person I was) I just had to check in case I had forgotten this once. I felt like a character in a bad sitcom as I tried to be stealth moving around the house, praying that no one would see me. We had lived in the house only a few months and I didn't know any of my neighbors, but even if I had I would have been mortified to go to one of their houses to ask for help while wearing a nearly transparent bathrobe. (Have I mentioned that my bathrobe was old?)

After confirming my worst fear - that I was locked out and my baby was locked in - my panic started to increase. I began worrying that my daughter would wake and start crying for me and even if I could hear her, which I couldn't at that distance, I would be unable to get to her. I knew my sister would not be returning for some hours and nobody else was expected. I did the only thing I could think of: I busted the window out of the back door. I'd be lying if I said that the experience of purposely breaking out a window didn't make me feel a little dangerous. I don't remember what I used to break it, probably a rock or maybe my thick skull, but I do vividly recall the horror I felt as I smashed the glass and watched it spray across the kitchen floor inside the house. I had bare feet which meant I had to walk across the glass-strewn floor once I got the door opened, and then there was the painstaking clean up required so my daughter, who was in the crawling stage, wouldn't get cut. I had visions of her little hands being pierced by or embedded with tiny shards of glass that might be left behind. I have always hated the uncertainty of cleaning up broken glass. It's impossible to be sure you've got everything picked up.

In the infamous backyard

Once I re-entered my house (finding my daughter still sleeping peacefully), I put a square of cardboard in the broken window to keep the bugs out, then called a friend who came over to help me install a new window in my door. And fortunately, I managed to clean the kitchen floor sufficiently as Emily never suffered any injuries from broken glass.

I have thought of this episode often down through the years. It closely mimics a classic bad dream. Something akin to walking down the street naked, or finding yourself using a public restroom that has no walls or doors, situations where you feel physically, and therefore emotionally, exposed and vulnerable. (Those are classic, aren't they, or am I the only one who has these dreams?) Anyway....

Before my husband and I moved last year, our house had a front door with a knob lock with the same "feature": it stayed locked unless you twisted the button. Instead of a knob on the outside, it had a lever-style handle that you pushed down with your thumb. I never, ever, pulled that door shut behind me without pushing on that lever to make sure that it was unlocked. And every time I did, I remembered this episode. Even if only for a nano-second, the image of me standing outside that locked back door after realizing what I had done, practically in my birthday suit, flashed through my mind. You just don't forget things like that.

Up for Adoption

Twenty-nine years ago, when I was almost 26, I had a baby girl. I was single, making a minimum wage, living alone, and my baby's biological father (who I had been madly in love with) was nowhere to be found. I had the unrealistic hope that he would be so overcome by a sense of love and devotion once he saw the baby (which he never did, by the way) that he would sweep us off our feet and protect and provide for us forevermore. (What planet was I living on?) That was not to be, but I still wanted very much to be married for all the conventional reasons, and felt quite desperate about seeking a mate; there was no one on the horizon. That desperation probably seeped out making the whole "landing a man" thing less likely (men can smell desperation a mile away), even though I tried very hard to play it cool.

Back in 1980, the year of my daughter's birth, unwed mothers were still a bit risque. I hoped that being a single mother would add another layer to the veneer I was laying down that told the world I was tough, independent, liberated and didn't care what the establishment thought. The truth of the matter was that I was very tired all of the time, lonely a good part of the time, and constantly broke, although I can honestly say that I truly didn't care what the establishment thought.

I never doubted, however, my ability to be both mother and father. I always felt that my love for my daughter was so great that she couldn't possibly feel a void in her life that should have been filled by a father. And I think to some extent this was true.

After many years of dating - finding a few men along the way that I thought I loved but didn't love me, finding men who thought they loved me but I didn't love them, and finding men who fit neither category - I found my husband with whom I first had an off-again on-again relationship that went on for more than a decade before he finally decided he was ready. During our long courtship (I can't think of a word that actually describes what we put each other through during those years) my husband had watched my daughter grow up and had played the role of 'dad' in her life, even more so than most 'real' fathers I have known. By the time we married, my daughter was 17 and given her delicate emotional state (what can I say -- she was 17) we didn't entertain the idea of my husband adopting her, although we had discussed it previously and I knew my husband loved the idea, even though he already had five grown children.

A few years later, my daughter got married and a few years after that, got pregnant. At the same time, we were finally putting together our Last Will and Testament, and for some reason, once again talking about my husband legally adopting my daughter. She was already 28, married with a baby on the way, but somehow it just seemed like such a beautiful idea. For many years my husband had felt like her father, and my daughter saw him as a dad, but wouldn't it be sweet and wonderful to make it so in the eyes of the law as well. To our joy, my daughter was enthusiastic about the idea, as were all five of my husband's children.

Yesterday, with our 7 month old granddaughter in tow, we went to court. The judge barely said two words to us as he pored over the documents we had filed, making sure everything was in order. He then looked up at us, the only people in the courtroom, and said, "Well... that's it." The four of us (my husband, my daughter, her husband, and myself) practically said in unison, "That's it?", and we were done.

As we walked to the elevator to go home, I fought back tears. I was amazed at the depth of my feeling about what had just transpired. I thought to myself, I'm a parent with someone now. My daughter has a mother and a father. She's legitimate. Why these thoughts crossed my mind I don't know since I never felt she was illegitimate just because her biological father chose to abandon us. I never felt we were less of a family because it was just the two of us. But it was almost as if the void being filled yesterday was in my psyche as much, if not more, than in my daughter's. I felt as if a gap in our family circle was finally closed. I felt more complete somehow.

On the way out last night, I thought my son-in-law summed it up beautifully in his parting words to my husband. He said, "Thanks for adopting my wife."
 

Thank you, sweet husband, for adopting my child.

We Love Until It Hurts, But...

Today I didn't say the right things
I didn't give enough hugs
I didn't listen to all of their imaginary stories.
Today my prayers were too short and
my lectures too long.
My smiles, I'm sure, didn't hide my fatigue.
Today I didn't heal any wounds;
in fact, I'm sure I caused some.
Their tears fell and I felt too lifeless
to wipe them away.
Today I felt completely defeated and totally inadequate
for this position called "mommy".
But as I kneel in prayer to confess my failures,
I am reminded...
I am not their hope.
I am not their total joy.
I am not their salvation.
He is!
And they are his children even more
than they are mine.
I am reminded...
he always listens,
always guides,
always touches,
and always loves perfectly.
I can rest now, Lord, remembering
that I am not alone.

My daughter was almost grown when I came across this poem (written by Wendy Brewer). How I wish I had had it to read while she was growing up because I so often felt those same feelings of inadequacy and failure described so well in the poem. I worried about the effects my failures would have on my daughter. I knew that some of my shortcomings would leave permanent scars; the question was how deep would they go.

I want to pass this on with the hope that the poem's words of encouragement will help another struggling, tired parent who, each day, tries so hard to be everything to everyone.

And Emily, if you're reading this, remember these words whenever you feel motherhood overwhelming you. And you should know that I have always felt that you are a gift, more than I deserve.