As I mentioned earlier, my mom is coming out to visit next Monday and is staying for a week. We’ve had this on the calendar for a few months now, and the anticipation is totally killing me. I always look forward to visits from my parents, but this visit is different for a few reasons.
See, I’ve been pregnant for nine out of the past twelve months. Matt and I moved to Nashville just 15 days shy of a year ago, unpacked boxes in our temporary apartment, hung our pajamas together, and took that life changing pregnancy test. Two months of my first pregnancy went by, and then my mom flew out to be with me during the hardest week of my life. Her visit last July changed everything about our relationship. Up until then, she was my mom, and I loved her. But when she came out to Tennessee to help me through my miscarriage, suddenly her MOMHOOD struck me like never before. All those years of hearing her tell me to “drive safely!” while I rolled my eyes came flooding back, and suddenly I realized A) what it feels like to be a mother, B) how the last thing a mother ever wants is for her child to hurt, and C) what it’s like for a mother to lose a child you loved more than life itself. My mom now totally made sense.
I’m not sure she realizes it, but since then I’ve opened up to her in ways I never had before. I’ve told her things I haven’t told anyone else (other than Matt – sorry, Mom, but you would want me to be honest with my husband, I’m sure). I’ve gone to her to cry instead of the people I might have otherwise gone to. In the past year, I have finally taken advantage of her motherhood the way she had offered it to me for years.
People often ask me if it’s hard living far from family, and the biggest thing I miss is that I would have loved to share the past seven months of this pregnancy with my mom… in person. Because I’ve realized just how much I need her to mother me… at age 27. I’ve realized how much I want to be a mom just like her. And a mother-in-law just like her. And a grandmother just like her. I want to be like my mom.
So she’s coming out next Monday, and for a full week we’ll be able to live out pregnancy together the way that I’ve wanted to for the nine months of this past year that I was pregnant. We’ll shop and clean and daydream about Penny together. She’ll give me tips and advice, and bemoan raising daughters, and I’ll likely cry a lot when I voice my fears and concerns to her. And I will so enjoy just soaking up her motherhood. It will be such a great time of bonding, but it will also be a time of closure and healing. Last time she came alone to visit us, she was here to mother me in a dark place. And this time, she’s here to celebrate with me.
All of this to say, I love my mom. And yet again in my life, God has shown me that I will face tough stuff ahead, but there is so much to celebrate. New life, green grass, faithful friends, a man I admire, creme brulee, a puppy romping in her backyard, and fresh beginnings. And the best daggone mom in the world.
April 30th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
hi, all….i am the mother priscilla is talking about here. nothing better than being a mom….and nothing harder than being a mom. the only thing motherhood isn’t is ‘easy’. but, if you are a mother, keep working hard, very hard!!! in the meantime, don’t forget your husband…that is the ‘easy’ thing to do sometimes. remember, because of him you became a mother!!!!! thanks, dear Lord, for my daughter, priscilla…and my other two wonderful daughters…their husbands, and my grandkids. this all makes still being a mother worth it!!! i want to keep up the hard work because it is still worth the effort. i don’t just mother my ‘kids’ anymore….i am mothering my friends. thanks, priscilla! and, thanks to clarissa and gina too. you were all worth the hard work. please follow the tradition of knocking yourself out for your kids. you will say ‘thank you, Lord’ yourself some day. for HE is the giver of all of these things..love, mom
April 30th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Beautiful, Priscilla!
April 30th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
you’re gonna be a great mommy.