thank you, mom

Published in The Greenwich Sentinel on May 11, 2018

A few months ago, a friend told me that I am relational. Not rational, but relational. Seeing the blank look on my face, she went on to explain that relational is about interconnectedness. And I thought, aren’t we all relational? Aren’t we all connected to one another in both a formal and informal way?

We are, but what my friend was pointing out was that, in addition to feeling connected, I actually perceive the world and gain meaning through these connections. Some people gain this understanding through nature or intellectual study, but it is in my role as mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend that the world around me comes into focus. It was a lot to digest, but I think my friend is right. I am more relational than rational and it does seem that I am moved by the people with whom I share my life. And as I look at these relationships, it is often the ones that are the most complex that seem to create the most powerful lens from which I view the world.

Do you remember the moment you became a mother? I do. My pregnancy had been fairly easy and uneventful, without a sign of the complications to come in future pregnancies. After a queasy and exhausting first trimester, I felt good, slathering my belly with coconut oil to avoid stretch marks, eating healthy food and reading the bible for pregnant women, What to Expect When you are Expecting. I even played squash well into my seventh month. What was the big deal? On the morning of July 10th, my water broke, we called the doctor, grabbed my previously prepared overnight bag, and headed to Greenwich Hospital. At 9:02 p.m. that night, we welcomed our first-born son and I became a mom. Minutes after all of the mayhem that comes with childbirth, the doctors and nurses disappeared, leaving us alone with our new eight-pound two-ounce son, swaddled in a hospital blanket. It was terrifying and awesome and peaceful and any lingering memories of childbirth had vanished and all felt right with the world.

Over the years, I have become a mom again and again and again and again. Subsequent pregnancies were never as easy as the first. There were lost pregnancies and medical issues. There were tests and worry and sometimes the feeling of relief and sometimes not. I spent months on bed rest and more months on bed rest.  Regardless, every time, I experienced that same peaceful moment after childbirth, when the commotion ceased and I lay with a baby or two in my arms, all feeling right in the world and my lens through which I looked at the world changing forever. To stare into the eyes of a newborn is to “see the face of God.” And it is humbling.

For a while, we had three under two, and life was busy. I did not have the luxury to reflect. I just did. There were late-night feedings, diaper changes, ear infections and Teletubbies on instant replay. We didn’t go many places. It was simply easier to stay home where we seemed to have three of everything; three cribs, three high chairs, three bouncy seats and loads of other things, like bottles and nipples and sippy cups and onesies. Over time, I settled into my new role as Mom, and when I wasn’t thinking about or reacting to our children and their many needs, I began to consider my own Mom.

She was 30 and single and raising three daughters. She returned to college to get her degree and she was taking tap lessons to fulfill her arts requirement at Sarah Lawrence.  She wore blue jeans. She was a cool mom. We attended her graduation. She got a job and, on top of that, she had us to worry about, too. She dated. Some men we liked; some we did not. Some stuck around for a while and some did not. She went through phases.  She grew her own wheat grass and made her own yogurt or we ate Yodels and Lucky Charms. We moved a lot. There seemed to be consistency to her inconsistency and, yet, she was raising three girls on her own and it was hard. We were not easy to raise and full of issues stemming from divorce and trying to make sense of it.  Not to mention, we challenged her with learning differences, frustrations, addiction, and the emotional ups and downs of hormones and puberty. But, we had many good times. There were summers in vacation rental houses with other single moms and their children, and, for me, lots of time on the tennis and squash court, and sails on her boyfriend’s boat and camping and long games of Crazy Eights and Monopoly and family pets that seemed to multiply and comfort.

Growing up, my mom’s efforts were often lost on me. Like most teenagers, I thought mostly about myself and didn’t understand the sacrifice that went into raising children. I had wanted it to be different in a grass is always greener type of way, but with my new lens, I saw my mom in a new light, and that light surrounded her in a wonderful way. I thought of her moment, when the doctors and nurses snuck away to give her time with her new baby before the rest of the world rushed in. I was embarking on a new relationship with my mom, one which embodied respect and admiration, and I was grateful.

My new role as mom gave me pause to consider my husband’s mother as well. Ann Haebler Frantz died in her mid-sixties when my husband was in his mid-twenties, and it was a profound loss for him. I only met my future mother-in-law once and that was before I was even dating my now-husband.  By the time we were together, she was already gone. I love when people tell me about her. She had a mean backhand and a quick wit and she never left the house unless she was completely pulled together. Clearly, my husband has not married his mother. She was smart and invested wisely, buying land on the water in Greenwich long before it was considered valuable. She was charitable. She lost a son and it broke her heart. Like my own mother, Ann was a single mom, raising three boys. It was hard. Yet, she shaped and influenced my husband and her spirit lingers on not only in the china we inherited and the silver that bares the same initials as mine but also in the soul of our home. Although I never knew her well, I am grateful for the woman that my husband called Mom.

There were other mothers I began to appreciate in a new way as well. These were women who had not actually given birth to me. Some of them had children of their own and some did not, but I came to realize that they were just as much a mother in this world as those who had physically endured the birthing process. During my early twenties, one woman in particular took me under her wing. When I was struggling, she had all the time in the world for me. Hours and hours were spent in a room in her home sipping tea and discussing my life. She offered advice and an ear. At one point, worried about me, she stood outside of my house, knocking and waiting until I finally let her in. Our relationship, like the one between a mother and child, was not conditional. She just gave to me unconditionally, perhaps with the hope that one day, I would be able to give to another young struggling person in much the same way. All these years later, I think of this woman and others like her and know that I am the mom I am today because of them.

Becoming a mom introduced me to an army of other moms, and this group became my lifeline. We went into battle, side by side, supporting, suggesting and raising our children together on the playground, in the pick-up line, in playgroups and in church basements, singing songs in music groups for toddlers. We spent countless hours in messy minivans transporting each other’s children to and from activities. Together, we watched our children fall and we watched our children succeed. We cried deeply, we cheered loudly and we laughed a lot. And we continue to do so. Gaining this group of warriors as friends has been one of the many surprises of motherhood. We share a lens that makes us want to create a better world for our children.

I have received so many gifts from our children, but as it is stated so eloquently in the Bible, the greatest of these is love. Early on, I learned that love can be about protection and security, and I have felt the strength of a mother bear watching over her cubs. At other times, love has been about restraint and allowing our children to fail and figure it out on their own when all I want to do is step in and fix it myself. And still other times, it is about letting go, and this might be the hardest love of all. It has been through my relationship with our children that I have begun to understand that love is steep with contradiction, encompassing both great joy and great heartbreak, and that my lens has developed to allow for this contrast and focus.

When I was growing up, my family attended a little community church on Round Hill Road. I remember one Sunday, sitting in the pew with my sisters and my mom. My younger sister (who was probably two at the time) was laying on the floor by our black patent leather party shoes, coloring, seemingly lost in her own world. The pastor was giving a sermon about gratitude and showing appreciation and remembering to always say thank you when, from the floor of our pew, came the loud outdoor voice of my sister, “Thank you, Mom.” The congregation laughed, and my sister continued coloring while the pastor carried on. But in that moment, that young two-year-old dressed in her Sunday best uttered the words that are the essence of the occasion we call Mother’s Day. It is gratitude for our own mothers who cared for us and for the others who helped in that care and for the mothers who became our friends and the gift of a new lens that we gain when we cradle our child in our arms for the first time far away from the bustling world around us.