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I gave my son his first honest to goodness Jewish mother guilt trip this week.
It wasn’t intentional and really it wasn’t until after it was happening that I realized what I was doing.
My feelings were hurt because he didn’t want to go with me on Mother's day to see the musical ‘Hairspray.’
I used this as an opportunity to pout like a spoiled child and talk about all the things I didn’t want to do that I did for him. When I realized what it was I was doing I texted my sister and told her I had learned from the best, my mother. #Carole
But as the days have gone by and I have not quite warmed up to my usual overindulgent fawning mother self I realized that when I think of my mother I don’t think of guilt trips but of her absence. After almost nine Mother’s Days without her and almost ten years without her still I yearn to talk to her.
To tell her that even as I am trying to explain to my son how hurt I am and why and how we cannot take back the choices we make I am at the same time so ashamed of myself for doing it. For hurting this kid who is so sensitive like his mother, like my mother, yet somehow unable to stop doing it. And I don’t need even wonder what she would say because I know she would take his side. And tell me he is a little boy really still.
That is the hardest part of living without her, not getting to talk to her. I cannot ask her what she would do as parent. How she got through those moments when I was more cruel or disrespectful then I care to remember. I don’t know if she would like my red sofa or my new bedding. I am uncertain of what she would think if I told her that sometimes I think my dog Cookie is a reincarnation of her brought to me temporarily. If she would like my hair grey. What she would think of the guy winning all the money of Jeopardy.
Whether she would approve of how I ultimately tried to make it up to my son--who wanted to make things up to me!--hugging him and telling him how sorry I was for the way I acted, that no matter how I hurt I was my actions were not acceptable and that I love him so much. How much I wanted to go to the play with him and spend my Mother's Day with him. I will never be certain that she knows my parenting is a direct reflection of the love she gave me and that when I think I behaved badly or wrongly to my son the only thing I can think to do is apologize for my actions and I can only imagine I learned that somehow, somewhere from her.
I know I will never get used to her not being here, that every day on my way home from work to not be able to phone her despite the love and calls I have received for so many years from my sisters and friends. I know I will never stop marveling at how we could talk for hours on end and have the same conversations over and over and yet I can still want to talk to her more than anyone else. That I will never stop wishing for those answers to my questions.
Happy Mother’s Day Mommy. #yearn