I'd been meaning to write this post for a while,* but I feel like I got a bit of a sign this morning that it was time for me to get serious about it. Kristine is already gone for work by the time my alarm goes off, which means I'm the one to get Beth up and ready to go in the morning. This morning, just as soon as she woke up, she asked me if I wanted to know what she dreamed about. When I said yes, she told me "How much I love Mommy." *You can take a wild guess since when. It wasn't any big secret, of course. It's obvious Beth loves her mom. About as obvious as it is to see where she gets her looks from. I don't really know how Kristine would rate herself as a mother, but as somebody with a front row ticket to watch it, she does a very good job of it. Beth is very lucky to have Kristine as her mother. Beth is only three right now, of course. We haven't gotten to those years when children and parents just naturally butt heads and say regrettable things yet. Something to look forward to, I guess. But, at least so far, Beth has gotten a pretty good draw in the motherhood department. I've come to realize, as I've gotten older and become more familiar with different families, that not everybody gets so lucky when it comes to moms. I did pretty well, though. I think she raised a pair of pretty good boys, and I think most of the kids she took a maternal role for would have nice things to say about her, too. If I were going to have anything negative to say here, it would be at myself. I've never been very good at understanding how to value myself and seeing myself through another pair of eyes. By the time we were in high school, my brother and I were pretty well left to our own devices. We were given quite a bit of freedom, and we were responsible enough not to screw it up. That meant a lot of time out of the house, which I'm sure was rough on my mom, especially given our changing family dynamics at the time. Her time was already prematurely limited with us during a time when she was just starting to have to grapple with the idea of letting us go anyway. I didn't really understand that at the time. I was just me, nothing all that special to get excited about, you know? Since Beth was born, though, I've come to a better understanding. I assume I'll come to an even deeper understanding once she gets a little older. There's something else I've come to understand about moms as I've gotten older and gotten to peek behind the curtain a bit. There is an awful lot of doubt and regret there. I can't speak for every situation of course, but I feel pretty confident in saying, for the vast majority of it, there is no reason for it. Are there things that could have been said, or left unsaid? Things that could have been marginally better or differently? Oh, probably. Nobody's perfect. But, would it really change that much? I doubt it. I've heard a lot of these sorts of laments over the last several years, and at the end of day, all I can say is it's okay. As a kid, we aren't analyzing things that deeply. Kids are pretty good at taking things as they come. Most of what I can tell you from being a kid is that I had the things I needed and a big chunk of the things I wanted. I had support to attempt the things I wanted to do and the space to see those things succeed or fail on my own, so I would learn the lessons I needed to learn. And when it did come time for me to go out and start really living on my own, I was prepared* for what was ahead and had the tools to deal with what life threw at me. At the end of the day, what more could I have asked for? *As much as anybody really could be, anyway. One of these days there will come a time when all I'll left of my mom are memories and maybe some glass paperweights. I am sure I will not be prepared for that day, and I'll be the one left with regrets. Too much time being preoccupied with other things in life, too much time trying to establish my own independence, whether it was ever questioned or not. The same sort of regrets I'm sure most people have upon losing a parent, I'd imagine. I've been lucky enough not to know it first-hand. And those regrets will have various amounts of grounding to them, just as the motherly regrets I've heard. I'm going to try not to dwell on those now, and I'll try not to dwell on them then, either. Instead, I'll try my best to remember what was and appreciate what I had. There is more than enough there to be happy about. So, belated, perhaps, but a happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I'm sure most all of you would say that you love your children more than they know. What you might not realize, though, is most of your children would say the same thing about you. Comments are closed.
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