Let's get this started on a high note. Hey--guess what! My mother died.
Yeah, she died almost twelve years ago (Twelve? Really?), but this is not about that. This is about how I am presently learning a whole new side of her, a side that I could only understand after I became a mother myself, two and a half years ago (Two and a half? REALLY?), and because I cannot talk with her about these new revelations, I am writing this. I keep finding myself in situations with Nova that remind me of something from childhood, situations that now, on the other end of them, I can only say, "Oh god, my poor mother." You know?
For instance: I remember an afternoon when I was seven or eight years old, bounding into my parents' bedroom where my mother was lying face-down on the bed trying to take a nap. I was in such high spirits that I jumped onto the bed and started bouncing up and down in a goodwill effort to share my joy. She ignored me for as long as she could, but then I started in singing as well, and she snapped. I don't remember what she said, probably nothing harsher than "Knock it off!" but it was enough. I slid off the bed and out of the room like a scolded puppy.
What I remember feeling at the time was shame. It was the feeling of thinking I was doing something good only to find out I was doing something bad.
But now through the lens of motherhood, I see it like this: My father had probably been away from home for days, transferred by the telephone company to work who knows where, leaving my mom at home with three young children. I am sure she had been cooking for us, cleaning up after us, making our school lunches; in general, working her ass off for us without a word of thanks. When my dad was on transfer, she was a single mom and we were three ungrateful kids. I imagine a scenario where my dad had finally come home and my mother, exhausted, escaped to the bedroom for a few desperately needed minutes of quiet time.
Then I came lumbering in like a goddamn wild monkey. It is a testament to her grace and sweetness that she did not sock me in the jaw.
Of course, I understand that I was a child, that I had only the best of intentions, and I also imagine that after snapping at me, my mother felt the horrible guilt that we all do when we momentarily lose our cool with our kids. I am sure she would be heartbroken to know that 25 years later, I still remember that day because of the confusion her reaction caused me. I wish I could jump ahead 30 years and ask the adult Nova what I did to her as a child that traumatized her so I could act differently now.
But I also wish I could go back in time to that young mother who, out of sheer exhaustion, scolded her oversensitive, thoughtless child and tell her that it is okay. Everything will be okay. I want to tell her that she is a good mother, a great mother, a mother so skilled in every aspect of mothering that I will find myself, after she is gone, trying very hard to emulate her with my own daughter. I would thank her for taking the job of being my mother so seriously, but I would also tell not to feel bad for yelling at me. She was doing the best she could, and better than I can do most days.
I would also tell her to--at all costs--for god's sake, talk the eight-year-old me out of perming my bangs. Yeah, only the bangs. I know. I KNOW.
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