Growing Up

It's becoming a reality to me that I am no longer a child. I used to be a child. Even in my 50s, I was someone's child. I was someone's baby girl. The invisible covering of my mother, though we were miles apart, still hung over me in that maternal protective way that only a mother can understand. But then my mother died. I didn't go through denial, or anger, or the other stages of grief. I felt the sadness one feels when the thought of calling her ended with the realization that she would not be at the other end of the phone to answer. It's not an uncommon feeling. Most anyone who has lost their mom will relate. The difference is, they haven't lost MY mom. The mom who called me because she understood the emptiness a mother feels when her children no longer need her in the same ways. She was my mom, and she hurt for me. And, because I had grown up and moved away too, I imagine she still felt a bit of pain because of me. 
   The mother I knew could often remember details of my childhood that I would never remember. While she's more than a memory, she's no longer in my world, and I find it interesting that no matter her flaws, no matter her failures, I remember her now with a sweet joy and an enduring contentment. I remember the mother who last smiled at me with eyes filled with love, only hours before she left my world. My mom left me a heritage. And because she is gone I have learned that I am no longer a child. I am now the adult, with all of its duties and benefits. I am required to be the grown up. It's my turn to be strong and resourceful, as she most certainly was. It's my responsibility to remember that, though my children are grown and no longer need me in the same ways, I am still their mother. And I love them, no matter what. 
   
    The hardest part about growing up now is knowing that my phone call won't be answered and I will never again be greeted with a warm hug when I appear at my mom's doorstep. As the adult I will miss that huge smile and deep hug that says more than words could ever say. But isn't that the way life was meant to be? Isn't this God's design? Not to just take away, but always to replace. I am not a new mother. I have carried out all these motherly duties and felt these motherly feelings long before. My own children are now adults. But they are still my children. Somehow, in some indescribable way, I am now fully a mother. It's my turn to answer the phone and to greet my children at the door with a mother's hug, knowing my own mother's hugs have ended. I will hurt when my children hurt, and rejoice with them in their successes and happiness. But the mother who knew what I would feel, long before I would feel it, will not be there to share in my joys and heartaches. It's knowing that the pain, as well as the joy, stops with me. For now anyway. And it's OK. The jumble of all these mysteries brings me to a place of strength and peace, knowing that I can do all of these things because of a mom who showed me how. Being a mother requires an impossible kind of love. Knowing when to let go and when to hang on tightly; when to advise, and when to just listen. Being a child doesn't seem to require near so much. It just takes longer to do one (seemingly) simple thing. It requires learning, when your time comes, how to be the grown up. And so I am learning. Every single day.


~Susan~