Love Letter to My Middle Sister

May 12, 2011 by ·

Dear M.,

When we got married you gave Rich and I a gift. An intangible gift, but one you managed to capture in words.

“On this day, I can think of only one thing to offer.”

It wasn’t a present. It was a gift. A extraordinarily beautiful gift.

“You have given it to me. Others have received it as well. In fact it is given all over this great Earth. No one should go without it.”

I knew this, but not the way you knew it. You knew this, and among your many strengths this is one of your most powerful.

“It is something that, if properly maintained, respected and contributed to, will never wilt or disappear.”

You gave us this gift nearly seven years ago, and during the time since I have often felt I didn’t nurture this gift enough. I was never afraid it would disappear, but I’m not sure I contributed equally to its upkeep.

“Its value cannot be measured and is rarely appreciated enough.”

You’re right, it can’t be measured, though I’ve always appreciated this gift you so freely offer to those around you. But I’ve never, never appreciated the value of this gift more than in the last couple of weeks. I’m overwhelmed by it, and the fact that you have given it to us.

When you came over Easter weekend I was happy to see you. No, not happy. Really, really glad. Relieved. My whole family was here that weekend and it felt like a buffer. It felt like you were all standing around the three of us holding hands and blocking everything else out. When you all left, I knew that support was still there, but I felt a little bit more alone.

Last Tuesday, when I came downstairs in the morning and Connor said, “Auntie ‘Shell is coming over today,” I just smiled.

“I don’t think so, honey,” I said. “She went back on the plane. She’s back at home.”

I didn’t believe him when he revealed that secret, so when you walked into the living room I didn’t know what to think. How could you be back so soon? Why were you back?

But I knew why. And I was glad.

“It is not a one-way gift. It is hard to give and not get back.”

Over the last week and a half, you have given me so much more than you will ever know. I can never repay you for distracting Connor when I couldn’t do it. I want to package up time and sleep and give it to you when you need it in exchange for those mornings you got up with him so we could sleep. I want to give you everything I have – every nourishing thing, every comforting thing, every beautiful thing – for coming, without being asked, when I needed you to come. For knowing when I needed to talk and when I needed to be silent. For seeing in my son what I sometimes don’t. For seeing in me what I felt was lost. For just being here and bringing the most precious gift I have ever received.

“FRIENDSHIP. My friends are my family and my family are my friends.”

I couldn’t ask for a better family but I will never forget your gift of friendship when I needed it most.

xx

Mama’s Losin’ It

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , ,

To Celebrate or Not to Celebrate: Reflecting

May 8, 2011 by ·

Last week I asked my husband if we could skip Mother’s Day for me this year as I’m not feeling like a very successful mother at the moment. He told me that wasn’t allowed. Another friend pointed out it’s also about them having an opportunity to tell me they love and appreciate me.

Fine.

I understand that, but I still woke up today wishing I could stay in bed. I’m not sure I can read the cards today, but I will want them when this time has passed. So maybe I won’t read them today but I will accept them with love and read them when I’m ready.

I always understood Mother’s Day was hard for some people – those who have lost their mothers, those who have lost children, those for whom, for whatever reason, Mother’s Day is not what greeting card companies would have you believe. I just never expected it to be hard for me this year.

I had lots of things I wanted to say about motherhood today, but this page has remained blank for days. I can’t explain why I want to fast forward through this day – I believe mothers deserve to be celebrated and I know I’m caring for my child in my own way right now, even if it’s not the way I will one day be able to. For many reasons, some of which I don’t understand, the whole day just makes me teary.

So this morning I looked through some of our photos from Connor’s first year, and a few from beyond. These photos say a lot about who my child is, and in them I began to see who I am as his mother in a new way.

Typical photo of a baby right after birth? Yes. Typical Connor? YES. At the time I didn’t know how typical (thank goodness).

We became a family, and in that family my role is mama:

I had no idea how fleeting this would be – both his ability to sleep and this feeling that I was his mother and nothing else in the whole world mattered:

Throughout his babyhood, when he did this…

…I did this, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world:

But as I fell under the shadow of postpartum depression, I experienced some moments that right now live in me only as a tiny light that reflects my son’s amazing spirit; my memory of them is mostly through pictures:

This phase I do remember, and it lights me up. The fun and stimulation of that Jumperoo was a Wonder of the World to him and his unbridled joy was one to me:

I didn’t mourn his first birthday, but rejoiced in how far we’d come:

I did feel a piece of my heart crack when he had his first haircut though:

I have learned that discovering new traditions can be a beautiful thing. (Also, “Do, or do not, there is no try.”)

We’ve had a lot of these moments and sometimes I feel that my experience
as a mother has been defined by them:

But then we make it through another year:

And I remember that this is what matters:

Because regardless of how I feel a lot of the time, this is how he feels:

And that tells me most of what I need to know.

 

The best conversations with mothers always take place in silence,
when only the heart speaks. — Carrie Latet


Filed Under: Motherhood, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,

Thoughts for My Mother

April 20, 2011 by ·

If my mom were a blogger I know exactly what she’d be like. She’d be the kind of person who pours her heart onto the page without worrying too much what other people think. She would start writing thinking no one would read – except maybe her kids – and then realize her ability to create a community around her would work magic in the blogosphere as well. People would read because she was a mom in the time before mommy bloggers and therefore her story is different. And yet it’s very much the same.

I could never have imagined how the advent of one small child into my life would change things, permanently. I was pretty passionate about everything I tried, passionate about business, passionate about training, passionate about travel, passionate about the mountains and skiing. So no one ever expected me to drop it all in favour of one small child.

I also could never have imagined how much time one small child took up. I think I envisioned myself getting up in the morning, dressing the small (and of course perfect) child in something becoming, and sitting, sipping tea and reading mind-expanding material to said child so that he or she grew up to be something extraordinary. The reality, as you can imagine, was quite different and a bit messier.

The day the earth-shaking child chose to make her entrance was cold and snowy… I won’t go into boring detail about the following day but it was indeed D Day and while I remember thinking, “Well, I will never do this again,” I was in for the surprise of my life. What was about to happen to me resulted in not one small child, but 4, and my life being co-opted and enriched in a way that was totally unexpected.

At 4:31 p.m. on December 21st, a child was born. She looked at me with my eyes. Then the whole world shifted.

Those of you who are members of The Red Dress Club will recognize the beginning and end of this piece as a recent prompt. My mom read what I wrote and then sent me a piece of her own, part of which is excerpted above.

“You should start a blog,” I told her.

“I wouldn’t have enough to say,” was her response.

I confess I laughed. My mom? Not have enough to say? She’s interested in everything. She could write and write and write and still not run out of things to say. She would write thoughtful posts. Insightful posts. Funny posts. She would probably write a lot of poignant posts. She would write posts that would connect to something in people and they would comment. And then she would click on links and follow tweets and read others’ writing and comment back.

That’s the sort of person my mother is – through her involvement in various things she becomes part of something. As far back as I can remember she’s been genuinely interested in people’s stories.

My mom is not a blogger, but her earth-shaking child is. And right now, reading the things I have written – especially recently – I imagine it’s hard to be my mother. So because I have, yet again, shaken her world, I will use my own blog to tell her this:

I know you’re worried.

I know you wish you knew how to help.

I know you’re beating yourself up about not noticing sooner or not coming by more. About saying the wrong things. About not knowing what the right things are.

I know you’re watching and reading and trying to understand, and I love you for it.

I know you don’t really understand though.

I actually don’t think you can. If you haven’t experienced this – especially this experience as it relates to being a mother – I really don’t think it’s possible to know what it’s like. During the times I feel good, even I can’t remember what the bad feels like.

I imagine just knowing I’m struggling, whether you understand it or not – and perhaps especially if you do not – is consuming you with stress and worry.

You might feel as though I’m not reaching out to you enough. Don’t take it personally – it’s not really anything to do with you. I just can’t right now.

I don’t know why this happened and I’m not entirely sure how to fix it, but I feel like I’m getting closer to finding the way.

You have to trust that it will be all right.

That’s what I’m doing. I’m holding on and trusting that it will be all right.

This is not to exclude my dad, but I think for my mom it’s different. And besides, that’s not what the prompt said. 😉

Linked up with Mama Kat, prompt #2: If my mom were a blogger…

Mama’s Losin’ It

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sweetness and Sentiment

March 14, 2011 by ·

One day soon, they will appear. Their presence will be fleeting, their contribution sweeter for its shortness. They will sit among the usual, the mundane, and to many they will appear to be nothing special. But they are.

I first noticed them two seasons ago. Until then everything about that day was ordinary: walking the aisles, skirting table edges to prevent a cascade of bouncing and bruising, scanning for items on a list. While I appreciated all that lay before me – the bright colours, the crisp leaves, the smooth skins – it was all very normal.

And then I saw them.

Image credit: dreamstime

Small, green, perfect. I can hear the audible crack as they open and the stripping sound as I run my thumb down the centre, freeing each perky pea from its pointy shell. I can taste the ideal combination of sweetness and crunch as I bite into them. Each one is capped with a jaunty hat that reflects their place in my memory – a place of happiness and of sunlight.

I’m sentimental about these peas, even though they’ve left me with a scar.

I was two, or slightly older. About the age Connor is now. It was pea-shelling time at my Grandma’s farm – something not to be missed. In my memory I was running to get there, anxious to help and hoping for a taste. I burst through the open front door out into the sunlight, all my senses trained on the sweetness of those peas.

And not, unfortunately, on the rocky steps in front of me.

I went down, hard, a small girl in a frilly dress, and my forehead met jagged concrete. Instead of sweetness that day I got stitches and a scar.

Having been so young, my memories of this day are probably more through the telling of it than the truth (though my mother remembers it quite differently). Either way, I carry a vision in my mind of what that day was like. I remember my family, not my fall. I remember the sunshine, not the stitches. It’s a happy memory, bringing with it all the sweetness of sentimentality.

I look for them every year, those English peas. When I see them I stop and smile. I pause to touch my forehead and then buy a bag to share with my son.

Experimenting with a memory. Concrit welcome on this one.

Filed Under: Writing · Tagged With:

Birds of a Feather

February 20, 2011 by ·

In my late 20s, I spent several days crammed in a van with my parents and three (adult) siblings driving halfway across Canada – from BC to Manitoba – for my grandmother’s memorial service. When I tell you this is the type of experience I wish for my son, you’ll think, “That’s it. This chick is definitely crazy.”

I’d say you have to understand my family to get it, but you don’t. We’re like any number of other families out there – we drive each other crazy at times. Sometimes we’re in touch a lot and other times I can’t remember when I last saw my brother. We compare ourselves and find fun and comfort in our similarities. We contrast ourselves and joke that our youngest sister is adopted. We are there for each other – always, unfailingly, without question.

So when all the logistical hurdles have been tackled and it turns out the most logical – and least frighteningly expensive – option for getting us all to the service is to drive there, in a van, together, none of us balks. It will be nothing less than an adventure.

Picture a van with miles and miles to go on the Trans-Canada. Each of us likes to be prepared for any eventuality (we get it from our mother) and this means none of us packs light. The van is crammed. Full of people, full of bags, full of cameras and things to do and music to listen to. And somewhere, beneath all of the people and all of their stuff, is an urn.

This suddenly occurs to me.

“Mom, where’s Grandma?”

“Under the seat.”

Silence.

I knew she had to be with us. She has to get there somehow. But I didn’t actually stop to think about the implications. I have a brief, “Oh my God. Mom!!” moment but it quickly passes. Of course she’s with us. It couldn’t be otherwise. I do briefly wonder if Grandma thinks we’re all crazy but realize she knows us well enough to know. We totally are. And I know she’s glad this is how this trip has turned out to be.

We drive.

We’re six people who are very similar and very different all at the same time, and between swim meets and family trips we’ve spent a lot of time in vehicles together. I know how this could go. I know how it would have gone in the past. I cross my fingers no one asks my middle sister where she wants to eat. (Kidding, Michelle! I know we’re long past the days where we’d all choose somewhere and you wouldn’t want to go and would have a fit about it.) (She’s going to kill me for this.)

We drive.

We were smart enough to get a van with a DVD player, so we watch movies.

We drive.

When movies get boring, we turn on the music. We have very, ahem, different tastes in music, and that same middle sister usually wins for having taste that’s agreeable to most of us. So we pop in her disc of tunes.

We drive.

We’ve left BC behind. We’ve left Alberta behind. We’re long past the ocean, which all of us love. We can no longer see the towering Rockies, to which all of us return repeatedly because there’s something there that draws us back. (Two of us live there now, and I won’t be at all surprised if we all end up back there again.) We’re now in Saskatchewan. It’s pretty, but flat. Nothing but miles and miles of highway in front of us.

The music plays and we drive on.

None of us is particularly shy about singing along, and over the last couple of days there have been various voices joining in for a chorus here, a verse there.

One track ends, and another begins. And suddenly we’re all belting out the same song.

“Movin’ right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can’t lose,
This could become a habit.”

The Muppets. Does anyone else have a family who would have a Muppets song on a road trip mix? This is totally normal for my family. And it’s totally normal that we’d all be singing along.

“Movin’ right along,
Foot-loose and fancy free.
Getting there is half the fun; come share it with me.”

Driving and singing. There’s nothing really that stands out about this, except that this is how my family is and I’m grateful for it. Then comes the moment.

“Movin’ right along.
Hey LA, where’ve you gone?
Send someone to fetch us, we’re in Saskatchewan!”

Peals of laughter. My mom is laughing so hard she’s crying. Of course my magical sister would have this song on her mix. Of course we’d hear this song, this line, while we’re driving along the highway in Saskatchewan. All six (seven?) of us, in a place none of us has visited often – some of us never before and never since. A place we’ve never all been together.

“Movin’ right along.
We’re truly birds of a feather,
We’re in this together and we know where we’re going.”

I want this for my son. I want him to have a family he can laugh with and cry with and drive a thousand miles with. I want him to have shared experiences that pop up at just the right moment, that make him laugh and cry at the same time, and that define his family in ways it’s hard for outsiders to understand. I want him – no matter the circumstance – to know that we’re in this together and we know where we’re going.

—–

This is another post in response to The Red Dress Club’s memoir prompts. This week’s assignment was to choose a memory, recall it in detail and then investigate what this memory means. I had a hard time choosing a memory and when I first started working with this one I wasn’t sure where it was going. But of course the meaning was there all along.

Post dedicated to my awesome family, which includes my husband who, while he wasn’t there for this, fits right in to the craziness. Birds of a feather, indeed.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »